


Forged In Fire

by AoifeMoran



Category: Cosmere - Brandon Sanderson, Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: AU, Cosmere AU - Radiant Evi, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Infertility, Miscarriage
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2019-09-14 10:30:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 22,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16911264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AoifeMoran/pseuds/AoifeMoran
Summary: In Iri, they tell stories of a greatshell that never dies. When its shell gets too heavy for its aging body and it cannot carry on, it catches fire, burning with many colored flames until nothing remains but a pile of ash, a few small gem chips and a little cremling that looks like the greatshell made small. If you give it time, food and fire, it will grow, and grow, and burn, and live.No one in Alethkar has heard this story, but that does not surprise her. The Alethi have not heard of many things, and they have plenty of concepts that are foreign to her as well.She does not keep the story to herself, though. She tells it to her boys, and she tells it to herself. You can grow, and burn to ash, and grow again.Some days, it is all that keeps her going.





	1. Char

Her boys asked for the story of the Fireshell tonight, begging her to stay and tell it, just one last story and then they'd go to sleep, really they would. They are sweet boys, and she is helpless before them, so of course she obliged. It does not hurt that the story is her favorite, the story that kept her strong when she fled home with her brother and a set of armor, when everything burned to ash and she had to build and grow again. The pain of loss tears at her heart, but she looks at her sleeping sons. One clutches a worn toy soldier, covered by the soldiers’ coarse wool blanket that he insists on using, and the other lies curled up beneath a well-worn, much-loved quilt. She looks at her boys, and thinks of all the dozens of children in Rathalas, the future, the pain and the loss that awaits them if her husband’s demands are not met, and she steels her jaw.

Life before death, always. The words have been with her since Iri, since sneaking out of the only home she has known and running away to save herself. Tonight she is sneaking out of her home too, cloaked like she was that night, but tonight, she is running away to save countless others. The words give her the strength to act, strength the Alethi don’t believe she has, seeing her as little more than a weak foreigner needing protection.

There are different kinds of strength, one of her husband’s ardents once told her, and she takes those words and gathers her strength and puts it before her weakness, because she must. Because if she does not, the people of Rathalas will suffer a grave injustice, and her heart weeps at the thought, and she sets off on her mission.

Out into the main camp, she passes flickering campfires and lone sentries watching for ambush in varying states of alertness. She hasn’t gone very far but already she feels both giddy and terrified with the thought of what she is doing. She is tempted to stop, to turn back, but Rathalas’ fate hangs in the balance, and she cannot bear the thought of yet more lives cut short to satisfy the Alethi warlust. She takes a step, and then another, and then the next.

She arrives at the stables, and nudges a stableboy drowsing on a bale of hay by the entrance with the tip of her boot, a finger on her lips to tell him to keep quiet. 

“My horse, please,” she whispers, lowering her hood, and the boy looks up, dark eyes widening in shock as he looks at her, sees the torchlight reflected in her golden hair and realizes who she is.

“I, er, of course Brightness, right away,” he begins to stammer, and she fishes a sphere out of her safepouch as he rushes to saddle her horse, a beautiful golden mare of partial Ryshadium stock that her husband gave her for a wedding gift. 

“You didn’t see anything tonight,” she tells him, handing him the sphere. The boy looks up in shock, almost dropping it when he sees it’s a ruby mark, but she smiles and shakes her head, hoping he understands not to argue.

The boy bows his head in thanks and fetches her a mounting block when he sees her mournful glance upwards at Starmark’s saddle, almost a handspan above her head. 

Atop her horse, the camp looks somehow different, distant and somewhat removed. Is this what men see, she wonders, when they ride out on their stallions and set off to conquer the world? And how can they focus only on the goal, the destination, and not the journey? But Salas is low in the sky, and the world around her looks still and grey, and all thoughts of her goal leave her mind as she settles her hood around her face, cloaking her too-noticeable hair and face, and sets off at a simple trot.

The king’s book and its words echo in her mind as she makes her way out of the camp and towards the distant lights of Rathalas. The things she has read in on the nights the king asks her to read to him make sense to her in a way that nothing else in Alethkar has. 

The Alethi, and her husband especially, make war as easily as they breathe, and revel in the death and destruction they breathe, but Nohadon talks of codes and rules, justice and honor and dignity, kingdoms held together by trust and respect and not fear. That is the Alethkar Gavilar wants, and she can see it, shining brightly, one of the Silver Kingdoms made anew.

She keeps her secrets closer than her safepouch, it feels, and one of the things she will never speak aloud, is how she feels about the king. She loves her husband, loves how he will always keep her safe, but she also hates his bloodlust, the way he is driven by singular urges to terrifying lengths, and she fears what it will lead to. The king, his brother, is as fierce as Dalinar, to be sure, but it is tempered by a desire to do better, and to change Alethkar, build a better future. She wishes her husband had his brother’s ideals. She wishes she were a better wife, more like the queen, Navani, stronger, more capable, less pained by the horrors - or necessities, as Dalinar would say - of war. She wishes she were less rebellious, less outspoken about how disgusted she is by the constant bloodshed. She wishes she was braver, had the power to take a stance and change things.

“You can,” she whispers to herself as Starmark trots faithfully on. Motes of dust rise up from beneath her hooves, swirling into patterns and dissolving in the chill night wind. “You will. The most important step is the next,” she adds after a pause, because it feels right. She is doing the right thing. The certainty of it fills her with courage and an inner peace she has so rarely felt. The ideals that have crystalized in her head as she read to the king rise up inside her like the tongues of flame from a cookfire. She only has her voice for company, and the night is lonely, so she speaks the words aloud, feeling the weight of them as they fall from her lips.

“Life before death.” Her breath steams in front of her, and the night feels colder and darker than it did before. “Strength before weakness.” Her hands tighten upon her reigns, panic rising in her throat for a reason she cannot name. “Journey before destination.” The last words are barely a whisper, and suddenly the world is strange, a dark sun, a sea of beads and a wide-eyed girl with a stubborn jaw, pale white skin turning to dust before her eyes and revealing her bones.

“I am Char,” the girl says, throwing her words out like a challenge. “And I accept your Words.”

“What? I don’t, where am I?” She blurts, words coming out a panicked jumble. In her shock at the strangeness of this place she did not even notice Starmark’s disappearance. “Where is my horse?” She clings to the logic of that thought in the illogic of the place and the girl, repeating her question as the girl’s skin grows back and turns to dust again, and her eyes never break their stare.

Then suddenly the world she knows is back, and she is clinging to Starmark’s neck, breathing in the cold night air and the smells of horse and leather and the plant life around her, grounding herself against the shock and panic. A flicker of regret rises in her, and she wonders if she should turn back and abandon this mad errand. Surely the events of this night are enough adventure for her.

“No.” A soft voice like the hiss and crackle of flames says, and she jumps, pulling up on Starmark’s reigns on instinct. “I will not be bonded to a weakling,” the voice says. “I did not run away from home, from the Ring, risk coming into this world to bond a coward.”

She knows this voice. She has heard it before, thinking it a part of her consciousness, the part of her that drives her onward despite her faults. She has heard it again, in the dark sea of glass beads. She knows this voice. “Char?” Her voice wavers, despite her confidence in her guess.

“They tell us your kind killed hundreds, maybe even thousands of us, and didn’t regret it, and we should never even approach your kind because you’ll just kill us all again. But I’ve been watching you, and there’s no way that could be right. You’re not heartless and cruel, and I wouldn’t be here if I thought you weren’t brave enough to do what’s right, if I thought you weren’t strong enough to obey the truths in your heart and not the lies you are fed.

I am Char, youngest of ashspren, bonded to you so you can share my strength and power when yours fails, and I can share your knowledge and skill to help prevent what is to come,” the voice proclaims, and a faintly glowing shape coalesces in front of her, the same girl she saw earlier made small, clothed in a soldier’s uniform that swirls and dissolves to reveal bone every so often.

She takes a deep breath. She knows what this is, what this means for her, what this means about her, and it terrifies her just as much as it fills her with awe. This - she! - is what Gavilar has been searching for! She must tell the king, she knows, and she almosts turns Starmark around, almost heads back towards the warcamp, but Char’s words ring in her head. Obey the truths in her heart. Save Rathalas. 

“I am Evi Kholin,” she says softly, looking at the girl-spren, though her voice never wavers. A distant part of her notices that she is glowing a pale red-orange, wisps of light rising and dissolving above her skin. “And I accept your bond.”


	2. Battle

She has a spren. She is bonded to a spren. She has taken the first step on the path to becoming a Knight Radiant. The knowledge is thrilling and terrifying. How many nights has she spent reading Nohadon’s words to Gavilar, sitting in the library, and then his sitting room, “and damn the impropriety of it,” he had said, “I’m the king and if I want my sister-in-law to read me a book in my chambers I storming well will!”

She had laughed at his boldness, hidden her blushing face behind the long sleeve of her safehand, hidden her sudden self-loathing behind a smiling face. How dare she feel flickers of attraction to another man, a married man, and she married to his brother besides?

How many nights had he shared with her his musings on the Vorin church, on the history of Alethkar and the Radiants and the Desolations, and she sat and listened and absorbed what she could, even though most of it was beyond her comprehension, and felt grateful and guilty that he shared these thoughts with her, and not his wife.

She had broached the topic of his wife, once, asking why he did not ask her to read to him, why he did not talk to her about these things, because surely she would understand better, know more than she did. “My wife is busy with our daughter,” he had answered dismissively, “making sure she grows into a proper Alethi woman, and she is far too interested in fabrials to be listening to my musings about fables, besides.”

It made sense, on the face of it, but privately, she held a secret hope that the sparks of longing she felt for him were returned, and she hated herself every time the thought crossed her mind.

Starmark stumbles on a rocky outcrop, bringing her out of her memories and into the present moment. The once-distant lights of Rathalas are close now, close enough that she can make out the forms of sentries on the walls.

“Who goes there, man or spren?” A voice calls, and the oddness of the question makes her look around in confusion. Is someone else approaching the city walls along with her? But in the corner of her eyes she sees her hands, still glowing that pale red-orange, and realizes that the guard is calling to her.

“Are you doing this,” she hisses to Char, who has settled on Starmark’s neck and is exploring the mare’s tack.

“I think it’s more like us doing this?” Char offers hesitantly. “I mean, I’m definitely not doing anything to make you glow, but I do know that it’s happening because of me. Or more specifically, because of our bond.”  
  
“Well make it stop,” she says, half whining, feeling like she’s talking to a younger sister she never had. The thought warms her as much as it takes her aback. She has never particularly wanted a younger sibling so far as she can recall.

“I say again, what are you,” the soldier on the wall shouts, “man or spren, Herald or Voidbringer, speak or we will open fire and shoot you where you stand!”

She feels like she is in a story she might tell to her sons, and falls into the pattern of story speech without a second thought. Throwing back her hood, letting her hair blaze with the light that surrounds her skin, she calls out, “we are both and neither,” answering with a trickster’s answers. Light puffs out of her mouth as she speaks. “Bring to us your lord, Tanalan! No harm will come to him, we give our oath!” Her hands grip Starmark’s reigns tightly, ready to move at the first sign of danger.

For several minutes nothing happens, and then the gates open, several armed men on horseback riding out, one carrying Tanalan’s banner.

“I hope you know what you’ve gotten yourself into,” Char crackles, as if hearing her inner doubts and fears about this moment, but the armed men are in front of her before she can respond.

“Are you a Herald, come to bring word of a new Desolation?” A young man’s voice calls out from behind a jeweled helmet and matching armor - but not Shardplate. “Have you come to join us in the fight against these new Voidbringers made flesh?”

It takes some effort to not cringe at his voice, nasal and unpleasant, but his words are not particularly surprising. Her husband’s ardents have told her that Tanalan is very devout, praying for deliverance for his people, doubtless spurred on by the pain he endured as a child. She wishes she could be the deliverance he prays for, just as she hates him for prolonging this senseless war.

“I have come to offer mercy and redemption,” she says instead. “Put down your swords and spears and bow to the Kholin king, and you will be spared.” Tanalan moves to speak, but she raises her hand to stop him. “This I vow, as a Knight Radiant.” They don’t need to know that she is barely an hour past bonding her spren, after all.

“Heretic!” Tanalan hisses, and her eyes widen as she realizes her mistake. Few aside from Gavilar see the Radiants as anything but heretics against the Vorin faith. A hand gesture from the young Brightlord, and his men are upon her before she understands what is happening, manhandling her to the ground from her horse and binding her wrists together in chains.

“Breathe!” Char whispers in her ear and she does so without thinking. Light flows into her from the infused gemstones in Tanalan’s armor, and she feels impossibly strong, strong enough to break the chains on her wrists simply by pulling her hands apart from each other.

The terrified look on Tanalan’s face is the last thing she sees before something heavy hits the back of her head, and she collapses.

She returns to wakefulness before barely any time has passed, certainly far sooner than what it should take to recover after a blow to her head, and she doesn’t feel any lingering tenderness or pain. In the brief moments of her unconsciousness, Tanalan’s men have tied her to a horse and are riding towards the city, doubtless to hold her prisoner, and likely ransom her. She tries to inhale stormlight like she did before, but either there is none left or she has lost the trick of it, because nothing happens, no strength floods her like before. Panic begins to set in, but she continues to feign unconsciousness for want of a better plan.

They ride through the city, and she sees signs of hunger and desperation and knows they cannot hold out much more. Tanalan’s betrayal, the deception of the caravan and the ambush make more sense in this light, but her husband will not see it that way.

One of Tanalan’s guards takes her from the horse and all but throws her over his shoulder like a sack of grain as they enter the keep. Rathalas’ palace, or as much of it as she sees while pretending to be unconscious, is much less impressive than she expected. The artwork that should adorn a Brightlord’s home is gone, likely sold to buy grain to feed the starving populace. Most of the walls have torches, and not goblets of spheres, more evidence of poverty.

“Send a messenger to Kholin, tell him we have his wife and will trade her life for peace,” Tanalan barks at a uniformed man standing by an impressive set of doors, before pushing past him and entering the room beyond.

The doors are studded with dimly glowing gems. She inhales, imagining the light streaming towards her, and feels more alert with the light in her body.

“If you keep your mouth closed,” Char whispers in her ear, “the Stormlight will stay longer.” She stifles the urge to nod and follows her spren’s advice. She has no way of knowing when she will come across more infused gems. Holding her breath is easier, too, she notices. She needs to breathe less when she is infused, for lack of a better word, with Stormlight.

The guardsman carries her into the room Tanalan entered. It is dimly lit, no windows that she can see, and looks like a strongroom, the sort of room where a Brightlord might keep his wealth safely.

“Who’s there?” An old woman’s voice calls from the depths of the room. “Is that my husband, come home victorious from fighting Kholin’s armies? Is it safe to leave the strongroom, my love?”

“Father died twenty years ago, mother,” Tanalan says coldly, and something in her chest aches. That poor woman, trapped in what must doubtless be painful memories, so old before her time. “Father died, and you and I sat here in this room and waited and Dalinar storming Kholin killed him while we did nothing!”

You were a child, she wants to tell him. You were barely older than my eldest is now, what do you think you could have done to change the tides of battle? But she is still pretending to be unconscious, trying to get a measure of her surroundings, so she stays quiet.

“Tie her to the chair by my mother’s bed,” Tanalan orders the guardsman, and as the soldier complies, she gets a look at the Brightlord’s mother by the dim light of a handful of wan spheres in a goblet by the woman’s bedside. Dark hair, streaked liberally with the white of old age, on a face that cannot be more than fifty years old. Lines of sadness, exhaustion and pain framing pale green eyes.

This is the price you will one day pay for all these years of war. The thought rises up unbidden, painful and bitter enough to make her eyes fill with tears.

Tanalan and his man leave her, tied to a chair in the strongroom of Rathalas’ keep, with only a spren, the shell of a Brightlady and her own painful thoughts for company. She cannot even take in the remaining Stormlight in the room, lest she be plunged into complete darkness.

“I was a fool for coming here,” she whispers to herself after an unknown but torturously long amount of time passes, “a fool for thinking I can change anything, save anyone. I am a little girl playing at being a Knight, and I am a fool.” The tears spill out of her eyes, falling onto her torn, stained riding dress, the last wisps of the stormlight she had absorbed from the keep rising out of them as they land.

Her companions continue to be silent. Time passes, what feels like hours. Muffled by the walls of the strongroom, she hears the sounds of horns and cavalry and battle.

“I am a storming fool,” she repeats, louder this time, half-laughing and half-sobbing. “I thought I could act on my beliefs and the world would change as I willed it. I am every bit the spoiled, pampered Brightlady the Alethi think I am, with no understanding of how the world truly works...”

“I’m an ashspren, not a liespren,” Char hisses suddenly, a hint of petulance and even animosity in her voice. “Save your revelations about yourself for another time, those are not _my_ words.”

“I don’t know what that means,” she answers. In the initial rush of bonding a spren the thought had slipped her mind, but now she considers what she knows of Radiants and their spren. “I don’t know why you chose me. Ashspren… Ashspren were the spren who bonded with the Dustbringers…”

“Releasers!” Char snaps, and she flinches, tied to the chair though she is, at the rage in the spren’s voice.

“Releasers, then,” she corrects, playing the peacemaker once more, the role she has played since she married her husband. She is not, she thinks bitterly, particularly good at this role, as evidenced by her spectacular failure here in Rathalas. “Releasers, an order known for destruction and anger… Why did you choose me? I am not what this order stands for!”

“Anger and hate can consume you from the inside just as easily as they can fuel you to acts of rage,” the old Brightlady rasps, and breaks into a cough. The room is filling with smoke, she notes idly, but it doesn’t seem terribly important for some reason.

“And it is easy to destroy the things you love without even trying. My boy…” She takes a rattling breath. “I loved him, and I told him tales of his father, and raised him to be strong and brave and true, and now he is going off to his death. A mother knows these things,” she says, and their eyes meet. Both of their gazes are full of pain, and she fights back another sob. “Use your anger, little Radiant,” the old Brightlady whispers, sinking back into the pillows of her bed.

“I did, I wanted to, I tried,” she shouts, letting herself truly feel the depth of the emotions she has been hiding for years. She feels lightheaded and giddy, and she doesn’t know if it’s from the smoke that makes it hard to breathe or from finally letting herself acknowledge what she’s thought all this time. “I hate the wars and the fighting and the death, I hate my husband for refusing to stop! I hate myself for being too weak to fix things!” She is shaking and crying and snot drips out of her nose but she cannot even wipe it because her arms are storming tied to a chair in a storming strongroom in storming Rathalas, and that only because she is a storming idiot who isn’t strong enough to stand by her ideals.

“I just want to do the things that others won’t, to right wrongs even when the world thinks it’s the wrong thing to do!”

The room is suddenly bright and her head is clearer. The ropes that bind her turn to ash, the numbness in her limbs fades as she stands. She is glowing, even brighter than she had been earlier, and she feels full of an impossible amount of Stormlight.

“Those are our words,” Char tells her smugly. “Do not betray me.”

Flamespren begin crawl up the wooden doors of the strongroom as she turns to the old Brightlady, who is caught up in a painful, hacking cough. As she is about to pick the older woman up and carry her to safety, somehow, the woman’s eyes glaze over and she sits up in bed, and as she speaks her voice is strong and commanding, like it must have been twenty years ago before she lost her husband. “I do not know how long I have been here, or how much longer I will last. Forgive me, and do not forget our oaths!”

She swears she can see the woman’s spirit leave her body, drifting into the place with a dark sun and an ocean of glass beads, but the flamespren are drawing nearer and she needs to save herself, if she can.

“They won’t hurt us,” Char says confidently, and she finds herself thinking that her spren is correct. The flamespren seem to gravitate towards her, to be sure, but in a frolicking, even fawning manner, and they do not so much as singe the hem of her dress.

She walks forward, and places a hand on the burning wooden doors, remembering the feeling of the ropes turning to ash around her. She breathes out light and the doors crumble as if they have been decayed for centuries. Cracks spread along the strongroom walls.

She walks forward, marble floors shattering underneath her feet. Flamespren dance up her dress, and the threads of metal in the embroidery melt and run into odd patterns, but her hair and clothes are untouched.

She is out of the keep and on the battlefield, and she sees her husband in his Plate - _her P_ late - cutting down men as easily as a cloth merchant slices through a roll of fabric. Disgust rises in her throat.

As she walks towards him, men from both sides throw down their swords and cower away from her. She realizes she must make for a terrifying sight - glowing, covered in flamespren but unburning, almost gliding on the ground and leaving behind destruction as she walks.

She reaches Dalinar, and the light runs out of the Plate and into her, locking him into place, trapping him in his armor. “Husband,” she says softly, rage and anger burning in her eyes. “You will _stop_ , or I will make it so.” Her children will not grow up to war and death and loss, not now that she has the power to do otherwise, and neither will anyone else’s so long as she can help it.

“I will stop,” he promises through the armor, and his honor guard sounds the call for an end to battle and call for armorers to help remove the now useless Shardplate.

Free from the impromptu trap, Dalinar looks at her in a mixture of horror and awe. “Call for a spanreed to the king,” she orders. “Tell him the Knights Radiant have returned.” 


	3. Growing Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baby Adolin! You're welcome!

She ruins the moment, of course, by promptly running out of Stormlight and collapsing in an exhausted heap. Dalinar, still stunned by his wife being a Knight Radiant, barely catches her before she hits the ground.

“Perhaps,” one of the scribes who has just arrived in response to her demand suggests breathlessly as she surveys the scene, “we might inform the king after the Brightness Radiant has had some time to rest?”

She looks at the Darkeyed woman, in her practical dress and gloved safehand, and feels so grateful she could kiss her. It’s the first sensible thing she’s heard since she rode off to Rathalas in the middle of the night.

“Yes, I,” she begins to say, but the raspy, tired edge to her voice takes her aback for a moment and she has to gather herself and start again. “I think you’re right. Some food, and some rest,” and maybe the light from a few spheres, she adds silently to herself, “would be wonderful. Please provide the king with a brief report and note that I will be able to speak with him by spanreed once I am recovered.” The scribe curtsies, knowing a dismissal when she hears one.

Most of what follows is a blur.

For a moment, as she wakes up in her Soulcast quarters in one of her nightgowns, the room looking as it has every single day she’s spent in it, she thinks it was all a dream.

Then her stomach rumbles so loudly she’s sure the kitchens heard it.

“Mm, Surgebinding will definitely make you hungry,” a girlish voice giggles and she sits up in her bed, startled, looking around for the speaker. “It’s only me, _honestly_ ,” the voice says exasperatedly, and then the events of the previous night rush back and begin to really sink in.

“Char?” She asks hesitantly. “You’re real? It wasn’t a dream, then?”

“Please. You’re not creative enough to dream up a spren like me.” Then, displaying a shocking amount of audacity, Char sticks her tongue out at her, acting for all the world like one of her boys. She can’t help but laugh at the sight.

Between her stomach and her laughter, she’s clearly caught someone’s attention. Booted feet make their way to her door, but the steps are too light for it to be her husband. Her heart catches in her throat and she tries to force the hope away as the door opens.

“Mama!” Her eldest son cries, and throws himself onto her bed and into her arms the way he hasn’t done since he was old enough to hold a practice sword and play at being a soldier like his father. “Mama, they said you almost died, and you’re a Voidbringer now, and you were on fire, and Rathalas was on fire, and father is drinking now, and all the maids said they’re not serving a heretic, and people are saying maybe they should kill you because it’s not natural, and I was so scared,” and he breaks down into muffled sobs against her shoulder.

She’s crying too, but tears of rage and not fear. How dare they? How dare her husband, the father of her children, let her son see the field of battle, the place where he planned to have a firestorm and massacre a town full of innocents because of his rage at one man! How dare the servants whisper that she should be put to death because they don’t know the true history of the Vorin church and the Knights Radiant!

She holds her son close, covered safehand on his back, stroking his gold-black hair with her right hand, and whispers soothing words to him. He sniffles, wipes his nose with a crumpled, stained handkerchief, and looks up. “They’re not going to kill you,” he declares. “I’ll ask uncle for a Shardblade and some Plate and I’ll protect you!”

Char hisses at the mention of Blade and Plate, and she’ll ask later, but right now she’s picturing her son, just starting to grow into his long limbs, the first hints of whiskers growing above his upper lip, standing guard by her side in armor. It’s a bittersweet image. “I don’t want you to grow up that fast,” she tells him, cupping his face in both hands. “I want you to have the chance to see a world outside the battlefield.”

He frowns. “I’ve been training with the ardents for _years_ . Zahel says I could start duelling in two years, maybe less if I practice each year. I’m almost good enough to beat Elhokar, and he’s the _prince_!”

“I know, and don’t think for a moment I’m not proud of you and your skills, my son, but I wish the world were otherwise. I want a world where you duel for honor, or to show off for pretty girls, and don’t have to fight and kill all the time.”

“Ew, girls,” he grimaces, but he takes a moment to think about her words before burying his head against her chest again and confessing, “I don’t like fighting, not like father does. The way he smiles when he crushes a man’s head with his hammer and looks around for the next, like a rabid whitespine… I hate it, mama. It scares me. Am I going to be that way too? I want him to be proud of me, but I don’t want to be like that…”

She hasn’t talked to her son like this in years. She wonders if it’s because of Rathalas, because he saw his father for the bloodthirsty warlord he is, or because he came so close to losing her he wants to make up for the distance. Whichever it is, she holds him tighter, tells him, “You don’t have to be anything you don’t want to be, Adolin. You’re my son too, and I’m proud of you as you are.”

She hears muffled sniffles, but he doesn’t say anything, so she just keeps holding him, hoping her presence is as much a comfort to him as his is a joy to her.

After a few moments, he slithers out of her embrace and looks at her curiously. “Are you really a Voidbringer now, mama? I don’t want to be like father, but I’m not sure I want to be a Voidbringer either. The ardents said they’re supposed to make the world end, and I don’t really think the world should end,” he says frankly.

She laughs at that, unable to hold it in. “No, dearest, I’m not a Voidbringer. I’m a Radiant.”

He looks at her in awe. “I definitely don’t want to be like father. When I grow up, I’m going to be a Radiant like you!”

“Work on growing up first, love,” she tells him with a smile, hiding the painful twinge in her heart. If only she could stop time, let her sons stay innocent children forever. “Maybe when you’re older, you’ll find you’re meant to walk a different path.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> many thanks to all who have left comments on this work  
> my partner in cosmemeing, c., is responsible for me finding motivation and inspiration to write


	4. Ancient History

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We aren't turning anyone to dust today."

Hunting down a servant to bring her a bath, and a maid to braid her hair in the complicated styles the Alethi court favours proves to be significantly more difficult than it had been before Rathalas. She feels like her life has been divided into two parts now. Before Rathalas, and now. It’s funny, a bit. She used to think of her life as before Alethkar and after, but she’s excited to see where this chapter of her life leads.

Hopefully, in the near future, it leads to a bath. She still smells faintly of smoke, and it’s not a smell she’s particularly fond of. Giving up on the seemingly futile task of locating a servant - they seem to have all fled the vicinity of her quarters, likely due to the rumour that she is a Voidbringer or a heretic - she finds one of her husband’s soldiers instead.

“Find someone to draw me a bath and attend to me,” she commands, and heads back to her quarters without waiting for a response. Her husband’s men would never dare refuse her. Dalinar would have their heads in a heartbeat.

“Ten heartbeats,” Char sneers in disgust. She blinks in surprise. She hadn’t realized that her spren could share her thoughts like that.

“Why do you hate Shardblades so much?” The question has been sitting in her head since Char first expressed her dislike of them.

“Would you drink out of a human skull? Carve someone’s bones into a fork and spoon to eat with them?”

It’s a repulsive image. Unbidden, she thinks back to the night she realized that Dalinar was her best bet for protection from _that man_ , the way he stabbed an assassin with his knife, rinsed it in his wife and used it to cut his meat. How different would things have been, if Char had been with her then? “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Haven’t you ever wondered where their spren are? Why a man with a Shardblade doesn’t attract any spren until he sends it away? Why it takes ten heartbeats to summon a Blade? Why Shardplate grows back, if you feed it Stormlight?”

She hasn’t, she realizes. It’s something people have always taken for granted. Highstorms blow from east to west, and Shardblades and Plate are the way they are. That’s how things work. “Can you tell me, then?” Her sister-in-law has been trying to make a scholar out of her. Maybe this time it will stick.

“They’re _dead_ ,” Char says, and she waits for her to say something more, but her spren stays silent.

She mulls it over, trying to understand. “Are you saying that they’re… Made of spren?” She asks, confused. Everyone knows that God gave the Knights Radiant of old Shardblades and Shardplate, that they’re probably some kind of fabrial. What kind of spren would a sword have? How would someone even make a sword out of spren? You’d have to be, well, God, probably.

“Not made of. _Are_.”

Her eyes widen in shock. The pieces start to fall together. She’s a Knight Radiant, and she has a spren. The Knights Radiant of old were the first Shardbearers. They must have had spren too. And her spren hates the Shards that Shardbearers use. Hesitantly, she asks, “Char, are you… Could _you_ be a Blade, or Plate?”

“If you found the right words,” she answers mysteriously.

Another thought strikes her like lightning. “Is this what you meant, when you told me earlier that “my kind” killed thousands of you, and warned me not to betray you?” The spren hums in agreement. She shudders. “I don’t want to know how that’s possible.” A pause, and then, “I don’t _want_ to, but if you know, it would help me know what not to do.”

“Keep your oaths, and we’ll be fine,” Char says, and she sounds a bit sullen. It makes sense. This would be a touchy subject after all.

“I will,” she promises fiercely. “I promise, I won’t betray you, not if I can help it. I’m not an oathbreaker. I won’t kill you, I swear it.”

Because the Heralds are determined to laugh at her from the Tranquiline Halls at any opportunity, that’s when she hears a soft cough from the door that connects her washroom to the servants’ hallway. “Er, apologies, Brightness, um, Radiant,” a footman says awkwardly, “I don’t mean to interrupt your, er, fascinating discussion that you, um, that you were having with yourself, but your bath is ready. And, er, well, all of the, um, begging your pardon, Brightness Radiant, but all of the maids are sure you’re a, um, Voidbringer,” he adds, and she can hear the panic edging into his voice, “so um, it’s a bit unusual, but Liah, she, well, she offered to help.”

“Very well,” she tells him. “Tell her I will require her assistance in half an hour,” and waves her hand in a sign of dismissal.

“A Voidbringer!” Char mutters. “We should turn them into dust,” she says vindictively.

“We aren’t turning anyone to dust today, Char,” she says sternly. Through the wooden door to the servants’ hall, she hears a frightened squeak, and sighs. Of course the acoustics of the bath chamber would make her words carry. It seems she’s doomed to have the servants think her a Voidbringer, or at the least a murderous madwoman. Such is life, she supposes, and resigns herself to her fate, and also her bath.


	5. Wards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evi gets her hair done. Along the way, she acquires a ward. It was an accident, honestly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***tw for infertility, miscarriages, birth defects and drug use/addiction***  
> mentioned generally without too much detail but please be careful

Liah turns out to be the Darkeyed scribe from the battlefield, and some of her anger at the servants evaporates upon seeing the young woman enter her room. Calm, efficient, and most refreshingly of all, blatantly ignoring the formalities between them that etiquette requires, the scribe helps her get dressed in one of her more formal and intimidating havahs, and then bullies her into sitting still as she attacks Evi’s locks with vigor and obvious experience.

“Do you have a daughter?” She asks, guessing at the most likely source of that skill. She looks young, around eighteen, but then, she is a Darkeyes, and maybe they do things differently.

In her mirror, she sees the woman’s face cloud momentarily, before being replaced with some unreadable emotion. “Sisters. The woman that birthed me was a firemoss addict,” she sneers, “and she didn’t stop just because she got pregnant. Not the first time, nor the fifth. Not till the moss killed her, and the Ardents cut me out of her stomach and took us in.”

Her heart aches in sympathy for the poor woman. Children born of women who use firemoss during pregnancy… She has heard stories, of the awful things that can happen. Perfectly normal births, but the children are born with burns marring their bodies, signs of the damage the moss inflicts upon them as they grow in their mother’s womb. And sometimes, the heartbreaking, horrible stories: stillbirths, born with collapsed chests or empty stomachs full of ash where organs should be.

“I’m sorry,” she tells her.

“I got lucky,” Liah tells her, though the way she says it makes it clear she thinks she is anything but. “My sister Divi was born with horrible burns on her face. No man will ever look at her and love her. Hira only has one lung. Nishi’s fingers on her right hand are melted together. She can never learn a trade, with only her safehand to work with. And Wani was born with her eyes burned to ash, like someone took a Shardblade to her.”

Those poor girls. She wants to cry, to find the woman who birthed them and bring her to justice and kill her all over again, but it’s a futile thought. “I’m sorry,” she says again, and the words are almost meaningless, but they’re all she has to offer.

“I got lucky,” Liah repeats. “After all, compared to all of those things, what is being born without a womb? At least I have looks, and a trade, and my health and my sight. And most women are jealous when they hear I have never bled once in my life. I should be grateful.”

She knows that feeling well. She should be grateful, she was told in Rira, that she was born to such a good family. That the betrothal her parents arranged for her would change the world. In Alethkar, they tell her to be grateful that the Kholins took her in, that she lives a life of privilege and comfort. “Sometimes they tell us to be grateful, but the heart hurts so much that all we can think of is of what we’ve suffered and what we’ve lost,” Evi tells her softly. “My brother and I ran from home, and the world thinks I am a spoiled girl who ran from a betrothal I didn’t want, that I should be grateful the Blackthorn so much as gave me the time of day, let alone married me. I don’t know your pain, and I wish I could help you heal from it, but I have known my pain, and I know how brave you must be to keep going despite it.”

“One foot in front of the other, step after step, that’s what the Ardents taught me,” Liah says, with that practicality she so admires. “I guess after sixteen years it just becomes a habit. I just wish I could have had the chance to show that I could be a better mother than that woman.”

“I like her attitude,” Char says, and she nods in agreement. She knows that feeling of carrying on despite feeling like the world is against her all too well.

And yet... “So young…” The words come out unbidden, and with them a fierce desire to protect. The girl is barely older than Adolin. “Which Highlord do you serve, my husband or Sadeas?” She asks suddenly.

“The Blackthorn, Brightness,” she says, suddenly formal and suspicious.

“I would like to offer you a position as my ward,” she tells the girl impulsively. It’s unheard of, for a lighteyed woman of third dahn to offer a wardship to a darkeyed girl of perhaps sixth or seventh nahn, but it’s also unheard of for a woman to become a Knight Radiant, or own a set of Shardplate to pass down to her son, and the whole camp thinks she’s mad as it is, so why not indulge her madness.

“You’re joking.”

“No, truly. I know it sounds mad, and people already think I’m a heretic and a Voidbringer, so if you don’t want to stain yourself by association, of course you can feel free to say no, but…”

“I don’t need charity,” the girl tells her, raising her chin stubbornly. “I don’t need you to feel sorry for me, and if you’re looking for a pet darkeyes, that’s not me.”

“It’s not charity,” she says. “I regret the pain you’ve suffered and what it’s taken from you, that much is true, but you impressed me with your common sense and patience, and my spren likes you.”

“Spren?” She clearly wasn’t expecting that.

“Each order of the Knights Radiant was bonded to a different type of spren,” Char tells her, and she repeats the words for Liah to hear.

“My spren, Char, is an ashspren. She likes you, even though you can’t see or hear her,” she adds after the short explanation.

“Oh.” Liah pins the ends of the last braid into place, and looks at her work. She bites her lip, clearly considering the offer of wardship. “Well if Char likes me, then I _suppose_ … I accept the wardship offer, Brightness.”

“Please, call me Evi,” she grins, and then rises and hugs the unsuspecting girl before Liah can so much as realize what’s happening.


	6. Wasting Paper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evi assigns her ward some homework.

Liah fills her in on what’s happened since what people are calling the Second Battle of Rathalas, and her dramatic collapse into exhaustion. She is unsurprised to hear that she has slept for an entire day, and that various rumours have spread in that time claiming she is a Voidbringer, or a Herald, or a heretic, all depending on the speaker. The majority of the Darkeyes, it seems, hold to the opinion that she is either a Voidbringer, or that her powers are some sort of forgery or trick, and she is a heretic like the old Knights Radiant. Amusingly, the Herald rumour has its source, as best as Liah could discern, in her sons, who have been vocally supportive of her despite not truly knowing what happened.

“And what has my husband been saying?”

“Well, he mostly hasn’t been saying anything, on account of being storming drunk pretty much ever since the army came back to camp,” Liah tells her, with a disgusted snort that tells her everything she needs to know about the girl’s feelings on those who rely on substances like drugs and drink.

She is of a similar mind, if she is honest, but what Liah says is worrying. Dalinar has never been one to drink to excess outside of feasts, not as far as she can recall. “And my sons? Have they seen him in this state?” This might explain why Adolin came to her, and not to his father like he would have otherwise.

Liah nods. “I thought he was a grown man and an experienced war leader,” she remarks. “Instead, he’s acting like a child who had his favourite toy taken from him because you wouldn’t let him carry out the slaughter he’d planned on.”

Again she is struck by her new charge’s boldness in saying what she thinks. “Planned on?” She knows her husband can be brutal, has seen the carnage he has left on uncounted battlefields, but she would have liked to believe he would not harm innocents, the women, children and infirm hiding behind walls, praying for an end to battle. The people she had wanted to save.

“The people we did save,” Char says proudly, and the words help her to feel stronger and take more pride in her deeds despite the lives she hadn’t been able to protect. The rattle of the old Brightlady’s breath echoes in her ears, and she feels like she’s back in that tiny room, beginning to choke on smoke and ash.

“Evi? Evi, are you alright?” Liah’s concerned voice breaks through the haze that clouds her mind. She’s sitting, Liah standing over her, waving one hand in front of her face. How did she get here? “You weren’t here,” her ward says, a hint of uncertainty in her stare. “Like one of the soldiers with battle shock, seeing a squad that isn’t there anymore. Like…” She flushes, covers her mouth with both hands as if trying to physically keep the words inside, and shakes her head. A mystery to uncover later, though from the context, it seems like Liah has a young man she’s taken a liking to.

Not there. She thinks about what her ward said, and the memories she was trapped in until Liah’s voice broke through. That’s a good way to put it. “I was… remembering... “ She takes a breath of air. Fresh, untainted by ash and smoke and the scents of battle. “Rathalas, the rising smoke and heat in the room they kept me in. If I hadn’t said the words, I would have died.”

“Words?”

Char counsels her to stay quiet on the subject, at least for the time being, so she smiles awkwardly and tells her ward, “Maybe some other time?”

“I’m guessing it’s a Radiant secret, then?” Evi smiles at the term and nods, and Liah nods her understanding in response. “Alright. I won’t pry. I’m no Radiant, after all, and I have my own secrets.”

“I would like it if there were as few secrets as possible between us, given that you are my ward, but you are entitled to your privacy, and so long as no one will be harmed by them, I won’t pry,” she tells her gently.

“What even does a wardship entail? I mean, obviously I’ve never been someone’s ward before, and I don’t really know anyone who has. We,” she gestures to her eyes, “don’t really become wards. Not unless we’re first dahn, and I’m only seventh, and that because the ardents helped me learn a trade.”

“I’ve never had a ward,” she admits with an embarrassed laugh. “I’m not much of a scholar, to be honest, but I am quite good with paints and a needle and thread,” the only womanly arts Navani and her ladies had really instilled in her, and that only because it was common practice in Rira and Iri to teach their women those things as well. True, she could read and write, and she understood the fundamental sciences and maths, but she had never taken a particular shine to them the way her sister-in-law had hoped, in order for them to bond over a shared interest.

“I don’t think I’m much interested in scholarship either, to be honest. Well, maybe about healing and medicines. Or the history of the Radiants, I suppose, since I’m a Radiant’s ward. I tried to draw when I was younger, but one of the ardents scolded me for wasting paper, so I never did much of that.”

“Feel free to waste all the paper you like. I doubt my husband will mind the expense.” The joke earns a bright smile from her ward. “In fact, your first assignment as my ward,” she tells Liah, eyes twinkling with wicked mirth, “is to locate Dandos the Oilsworn’s book, The Beauty of Storms, and prepare a summary on what you have learned.” The book, full of beautiful art though it is, is torturously long and written in the formal Alethi of three hundred years ago. She had enjoyed it immensely, though it had taken her several months to get through it, and suspects her ward will also. “I suggest you write a request to the palace by spanreed, ask the Royal Library in Kholinar to set a copy aside for you, for when we return.”

“Return? To the palace?” Her heretofore placid ward’s voice is almost a squeak.

“Well, yes. It is customary for a ward to reside with her patron, after all.” She’ll have to discuss rooming arrangements with her husband’s steward. And a stipend for Liah? She hadn’t needed one while studying, but then she had never had a true wardship, only tutors as a child and instruction from her sister-in-law after. Liah will need new clothes, too, as she doubtless has nothing fitting for court, let alone anything befitting the ward of a Highprince’s wife.

“The palace.” Liah repeats, shocked. “In Kholinar?” Evi nods, amused. “I could see my sisters more often…” the girl breathes, looking up with the beginnings of tears in her eyes. “I wouldn’t have to see all the death and blood all the time just to earn enough to keep them fed!” She hugs Evi tightly, repeating the words “thank you” like a mantra as Evi returns the hug.


	7. Work Assignments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Evi fires people, but at least she doesn't set them on fire.

The most pressing matter at hand, now, is seeing if there’s been a message from Kholinar during the day she spent in bed, resting from her adventures. They head towards what Dalinar has termed the communications room, with its small staff of scribes, their rotating contingent of messenger boys, and the low-ranking Lighteyes in charge of making sure everything runs smoothly.

She can never remember his name, but he is easily recognizable by the sour expression he constantly sports. It turns into a surprised look as she sweeps into the room, Liah in tow, and demands to see the past day’s messages from Kholinar.

“Yes, of course, a moment, Brightness,” he says, almost grovelling in his subservience. She dislikes the man on principle - he appears to be the sort of low nahn Lighteyes who, instead of working hard to improve his station in life, does his best to cling to those of higher nahn and hope to ride their coattails.

“While I’m here, I should like to make a request of you,” she adds as the man presents her with the missives. 

“Anything, Brightness,” the man promises.

“The girl, Liah,” she gestures to her companion. “Her employment is to be terminated, immediately.”

He smirks, looking at the girl from head to toe before saying, “Finally got caught stealing by your betters, thief?”

“Thief?” Evi aks sharply, looking from the man to her ward, confusion on her face. Liah is bold and outspoken, true, but those are not the qualities of a thief.

“Caught her taking papers with her from her shifts,” the Lighteyes explains proudly. “Said she was writing letters to her sisters, but everyone knows that slum spawn only care about themselves. I’ll bet my commission she was selling them to make some coin on the side, like all the other things she sells,” he concludes with a sleazy grin.

She wants to slap the man for his words. Lazy, biased, disrespectful towards the girls in his care. She looks at the two scribes manning spanreeds, notes the way they sit with their heads down and shoulders hunched as if trying to make themselves smaller, the way the messenger boys stand pressed against the walls like they’re trying to sink in and become invisible, and at Liah’s clenched fists, which are starting to shake in anger.

“Bet your commission?” Evi says sweetly. “Well, then,” she gestures to him, prompting the man to give his name.

“Artath Garanos,” he says pompously.

“Artath,” she repeats. “I accept your resignation, with Liah and these two young women,” she nods at the scribes, “as witnesses.” Ignoring his shocked look, she continues, “You will vacate your quarters and leave this camp forthwith, unless you can acquire another posting with the army.” She intends to make it quite difficult for the man to find a place in her husband’s army.

The man sputters in shock, or outrage, but she doesn’t pay attention to his words until she hears him hiss a threat in Liah’s direction. “Liah is under my direct protection,” she says coldly. “You will mind your tongue when you speak to my ward, or I will take it as a threat to my person. Leave. You have been dismissed, and I do not wish to suffer your presence any longer.” Struck by sudden inspiration, she extends her right hand as if to summon a Shardblade, and the man squeals in terror and flees. 

Being a Radiant has its perks, she thinks smugly.

The darker-eyed scribe looks at her with a mixture of fear and awe, while her Lighteyed companion, likely an officer’s wife, just looks shocked and the messenger boys share wary looks. “Someone find my husband’s steward, and whoever is in charge of the army’s staff,” she directs the messengers, and the boys trade looks and a few elbows to the ribs before one of them steps forward.

“What message, Brightness?”

“Tell them they are to meet me here with all due haste.”

“It will be done, Brightness,” he bows, and breaks into a swift run once he reaches the hall.

She turns her attention to the scribes. “Have there been copies made of these?” she asks, referring to the correspondence with Kholinar.

“Some, Brightness,” the Darkeyed scribe says meekly. “Your pardon, we didn’t think it would be necessary.”

“You had no way to know,” Evi reassures her, smiling at the young woman. “I can tell Arteth did not treat you properly,” Liah snorts at that, and she shoots her a disappointed look which has her ward looking sufficiently reprimanded, “but that has been remedied now. You needn’t fear.”

“With all due respect, Brightness, they’re saying you’re a Voidbringer now,” the second scribe says frankly. “Plenty to fear in that.”

The first girl speaks in her defense before she can think of a response. “I don’t think a Voidbringer would protect someone like me from a person like Arteth,” she tells her companion, who looks thoughtful.

“I suppose you’re right. Still, a woman Radiant?” 

“If a woman can be a Herald, why can’t Brightness Kholin be a Radiant?” One of the messengers comments. Oh, that’s a good point, she hadn’t even considered it herself, and she’s the Radiant!

“I assure you, I am no Voidbringer,” amusement lacing her words. “Now, to business. Your names?”

“Wilin,” the Lighteyed scribe points at herself, “Detha,” her companion, “the twins are Ner and Ror, and the boy who went to fetch those you asked for is Sevam.”

Evi nods, considering for a moment before saying, “Wilin, I would like for you to take charge of this room, of all the scribes and messengers, from now on.” She thinks of clarifying the way she wishes for Wilin to treat her staff, but seeing the way the others perk up, and how the woman immediately instructs the messenger boys to sit and not stand as they wait, she decides it’s unnecessary. 

“Secondly, Detha, if you could assist Liah in making copies of the Kholinar correspondence from the past two days so I may take a copy to my chambers,” she phrases it as a request, but of course the girl can’t exactly refuse. As they begin to work, she takes a seat at Arteth’s now vacant desk, noting with pleasure that despite not being asked, Wilin joins the two girls in making copies.

Sevam returns, out of breath, and one of the other boys jumps up and brings him a ladle full of water which he takes with a grateful, gap-toothed smile. “I found ‘em, Brightness,” he says. “It’ll take a bit of time for them to get here. That account book the steward has looks like it’s storming heavy to carry around.”

“I suppose it would be, at that,” she laughs. “Well, I’m not exactly in a hurry.”


	8. Blasphemies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evi indulges in what the Alethi might consider bad habits.

Tnakrn, her husband’s Thaylen steward, and his wife Ltyh, who serves as his assistant and head of the Kholin family’s household staff, arrive as she finishes reading the first of the copied pages - a series of messages to Kholinar about the progress of the battle, before her intervention. The casual descriptions of battleplans, the intent to set fire to all of Rathalas, chill her blood, and she is glad of the steward’s appearance for giving her an excuse to set the paper down.

“Brightness Evi!” Ltyh exclaims happily, curled eyebrows bouncing as she bobs her head in respectful acknowledgement. “It is so good to see you awake at last, we were so worried, you see!” 

Parsing her words takes a moment, given the Thaylen tendency to skip vowels and run words together and the fact that Ltyh’s excitement makes her accent even thicker. “Indeed,” Tnakrn adds in his quiet, rumbling voice. “Truly, the Passions were with Rathalas that day, Brightness. The people cried out for a saviour and you appeared, like something out of a story.”

“Be that as it may, I didn’t ask for you to come so we could discuss religion,” she tells the man, and he dips his head, chagrined. The flat-topped master merchant’s hat he wears slips forward with the movement, disrupting his carefully styled eyebrows, and she stifles a giggle. It’s a silly fashion, and impractical. But then, she thinks darkly, so is the Vorin havah. Of course Alethkar is so backwards, when they force their women to use only their freehand, and woe to those like her, for whom use of their left hand - their safehand - comes more easily.

Her favourite thing about Tnakrn and Ltyh is that they are Thaylen, and do not so much as blink an eye at what the Alethi call blasphemies. Shooing the messenger boys out of the room and making sure the scribes are deeply engrossed in their work, she unbuttons her safehand sleeve and rolls it up, tying it with a string she keeps in her safepouch. Rubbing both hands together, she grins at the Thaylens. “To work?”

“To work, Brightness Evi,” Ltyh grins. Tnakrn places the account register on the desk, opening it to the current month, while his wife unrolls a leather case and briskly removes some inkstones, different coloured ink sticks, and several pens, as well as a drop bottle full of water. “Shall I?” She asks, but already expecting the answer, passes stones, ink and water to Evi.

The repetitive motion of rubbing the ink stick on the stone, like a highstorm circling the continent, has always been calming. She prepares black ink, then red and blue. At one point, one of the scribes, or perhaps Liah, comes to deliver another transcribed sheet and sees her exposed freehand, but she is too deep in the meditative state that tends to accompany ink-making to truly pay attention.

She exits her trance, inks prepared, and shakes her left hand out, rolling her wrist a few times, before taking a pen. “So. Tell me the state of the accounts.”

Tnakrn begins to list incomes, from the Kholin lands, from the sales of surplus foods, taxes and plunder. As he speaks, she marks the amounts in the ledger - names in black, incomes in blue and expenses in red. “I must say, the amount of plunder taken on this present campaign is significantly lower than expected,” he points out with concern.

Ltyh makes a hushing motion with her arm. “Yes, but considering the losses the army has taken, the expenses are far less than usual, and there were many spheres saved on salaries as a result.” The disgust on her face is echoed in Evi’s own disgust at the callous loss of lives and her husband’s policy of not paying a dead soldier’s last salary to his remaining family. She tells Evi the exact numbers, and she writes them down, jaw clenched in anger.

She swallows her rage and asks calmly, “And the household?”

“Expenses on Brightlord Adolin’s clothing have risen as his love for fashion grows,” Ltyh admits, somewhat embarrassed, reciting sums that Evi notes in the ledger. “I think perhaps introducing him to my cousins in Kholinar was a mistake, but he does so enjoy looking at the folios…”

Anything that gets Adolin away from his father’s influence, Dalinar’s bloodthirst, is welcome, as far as Evi is concerned. “And Renarin, and my husband?”

“The Highprince insists upon wearing soldiers’ roughspun so long as he is on campaign, and so the expenses from his side are minimal. As well, he doesn’t have any manservants at the moment, but rather an aide from his army, whose salary is paid from the spheres allotted to the army and therefore does not affect the accounting. Expenses for young Renarin are somewhat higher than the norm, given the doctors’ fees of late.”

“My poor son,” Evi breathes, setting down pen and ink for a moment, but quickly replaces her sadness with determination. Renarin will live as full a life as any Alethi noble’s son if she has anything to do about it. “And my allowance?”

“Brightness, you know quite well that you are not using even a third of the spheres allotted to you as per your marriage contract,” Tnakrn chastises. “You haven’t updated your wardrobe in months, and you don’t even have any maids, let alone a ward!”

She grins crookedly at that, gestures at Liah, “My friend, that is where you are wrong. Liah, my ward.” Hearing her name, the girl looks up from copying scrolls and makes an enquiring sound. “I want you to meet Tnakrn and Ltyh, my husband’s steward and his wife,” she calls, and the girl rises.

“A pleasure, Brightness,” Ltyh says, and then she meets Liah’s eyes and her own widen in surprise. “A darkeyed ward? Oh my, Brightness Evi, this is unheard of! This will certainly set the axehound among the chulls!”

Liah bristles, as if waiting for a negative remark, but Tnakrn’s deep chuckle startles her. “Oh, Brightness, you never fail to surprise. What’s next, a darkeyed bride for young Adolin?”

“If that’s what he chooses,” Evi says nonchalantly, “I don’t see why not. And besides, I am a Knight Radiant now. Who’s to stop me from doing as I please?”

Tnakrn looks thoughtful, stroking his eyebrows a moment before making an assenting noise, conceding the point. “I suppose you shall want an allowance for your ward, then? To be drawn from general funds, or your own allowance?”

“My own allowance.” Best not involve Dalinar with the subject of allowances and wardships just yet. Let him notice on his own time. “A ruby broam a week should suffice, I think,” she decides. “And one emerald mark to get her properly outfitted for court.” 

Liah looks at her, shocked, hands shaking at the sheer amount of money she is to receive. “Evi, Brightness, I can’t, that’s too much,” she says, shaking her head, but Evi silences her with a roll of her eyes and a dismissive gesture. “There’s no way I’ll spend that much,” she tries.

“So give some spheres to charity, or save them for your dowry,” Ltyh suggests kindly. At the mention of a dowry, Liah flushes and looks down, studying her shoes in rapt fascination. Ltyh and Evi exchange knowing looks, but Liah doesn’t notice.


	9. Troop Movements

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Messages are sent and received. Horses are readied. Safehands continue to be exposed.

Ltyh leaves to fetch a measuring cord while Tnakrn and Evi finish the accounts, and once they are done, Evi goes over the copied pages the scribes have prepared. She glosses over the diagrams of troop locations, the fairly thought out arrangements before combat scattered them all like a highstorm scattering a herd of wild chull. There are no responses from Kholinar - it seems Gavilar, or likely his ardents and tacticians, have no interest in the tactics Dalinar and Sadeas employ. Mostly Sadeas, she corrects herself. Dalinar is just as happy to charge into battle, and let the tides of war carry him along. 

And then she arrives at the reports that are most of interest to her. At first, the reports of her appearance on the battlefield do not seem to recognize her, describing her as an apparition of flame, maybe an illusion caused by the firestorm enveloping Rathalas. Then she is a robed Herald, and whoever is on the other side of the spanreed in Kholinar reports that the only Heralds who are associated with fire are Nalan, Chanaranach, Shallash and Battah.

A different hand, who then identifies herself as Jasnah Kholin, argues that the figure might be a Knight Radiant, but is rebuffed by an ardent who claims that to be heresy. Evi smiles fondly - her young niece has never been put off by arguing with the ardentia about potential heresies. 

The scribes reporting from Sadeas’ camp inform Kholinar that the flame-wreathed figure has put out the fires in Rathalas, leading to further debate about which Herald it might be, with messages from Kholinar asking if there was evidence of a soulcaster or any other sort of details that might help discern the Herald’s identity.

Then come the messages from Dalinar’s scribes with the revelation of her identity, a fairly accurate transcription of her conversation with Dalinar, and her order for him to stop.

A response in Jasnah’s hand, almost dripping with smug delight at her correct guess that she was a Radiant, and then, almost as an afterthought, the fact that the order known as Dustbringers, or their preferred name, Releasers, were known to attract flamespren, as mentioned in the text Words of Radiance.

She makes a mental note of the book’s name, something to seek out in the palace library upon their return to Kholinar, and returns to the correspondence with Kholinar.

A series of coded words, indicating that the next message is dictated directly by Gavilar himself. Her stomach twists, a wave of anxiety washing over her. Does he think her a heretic, despite his talk of Heralds and Radiants and Desolations? Is he angry that she has achieved his dream before him? But no, his words ring with delight and celebration, and he requests that Evi return to Kholinar posthaste that he may speak to her in private.

It takes her a moment to recall the head scribe’s name. “Wilin,” she calls, and the woman looks up, hiding a look of horror at Evi’s exposed safehand. It feels like a stab to her heart, for a moment, but then she reminds herself that she would be just as horrified to see a person walk about with their intimate parts exposed. “Wilin, has my husband heard these orders from the king?”

“Yes, Brightness,” the woman answers, overcoming her shock. “A runner was sent to the stables when the servants reported you were awake,” she admits. “You are to leave as soon as possible, with as small a party as is acceptable in order to arrive in Kholinar in as little time as can be managed.”

“I understand,” she answers, feeling a twinge of sadness at the thought of having to leave her boys behind, but they will not be able to handle the hard ride. She considers telling Liah to stay and watch her sons, but her decision is made for her when Liah speaks up.

Voice pitched loudly enough to carry through the closed door, her ward calls for one of the messenger boys, who opens the door just enough to stick his head in. “Run a message to the stables, please, to prepare a horse and a pack for me also.”

Ltyh, who must have entered while she was busy reading, tuts at this pronouncement. “Well that’s never any good, miss. We won’t be able to get you new clothes this fast, you see.”

“We can pass the measurements and designs on to Kholinar,” Liah suggests practically, and Ltyh nods, resigned to the whims of Brightladies and their wards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in my culture we give gifts for new years, so this is from me to all y'all.
> 
> also, this is officially the longest thing i have ever written that is not an academic essay.
> 
> also also dyou know how difficult it is to write things without using words that would not make sense in-universe e.g sheepishly in a world that DOES NOT HAVE SHEEP
> 
> aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
> 
> love you all thanks bye for now


	10. Goodbyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys try to be helpful.

She dismisses Liah to her quarters, so that the girl can pack whatever she feels she needs to take with her and heads to her own rooms to change. Upon arrival she is pleasantly surprised to discover Adolin, Renarin, and their darkeyed nanny waiting in her sitting room. Renarin’s gap-toothed smile greets her and she kneels down, hugging him tightly before doing the same with Adolin.

“We heard you had to go, mama,” Adolin tells her softly, looking at his feet. “Can’t we come with you?”

Her heart aches. “Oh, I wish you could,” she sighs, smoothing his hair back. “But your uncle the king said I need to be in Kholinar as soon as possible, and we’re going to have to ride at a very quick pace. I don’t think you’re going to be able to keep up,” she admits. She wonders if Liah will be able to keep up, but the girl was insistent on coming along, and she doesn’t want the wardship to end on the day it started due to an inane argument.

“I don’t want to stay with father,” Renarin says, almost too quiet to hear. “He only likes Adolin, because the surgeons won’t let me practice with swords.”

Her sons, it appears, have a knack for hitting the most painful spots possible with their words. Looking Renarin in the eye, she promises, “I’m sure we can find a suitable escort so you can leave as early as tomorrow, if you want,” and he nods eagerly, hugging her as tightly as he can manage. She exchanges a glance with Staveni, and the woman nods, understanding the silent request to make the necessary arrangements to travel to Kholinar with her charges. “But right now,” she tells her boys, “I have to pack for my trip, and change into something more suited for riding.”

Her sons exchange conspiratory glances between themselves and Staveni, who takes a step back and reveals a pair of packed saddlebags that had been hiding under her skirts. “We thought, maybe if we helped, you’d have time to at least eat with us before you go,” Renarin admits shyly.

“Oh, you thoughtful boy,” she breathes, and he flushes, looking at the floor. “Well, if you and Adolin can call for a meal for the four of us while Staveni helps me change into something that’s more comfortable to ride in, I would be glad to.”

“I made sure that everything was packed properly, with nothing unnecessary,” the nanny assures her as she helps Evi to unbutton her havah.

“Oh thank the Heralds,” she breathes, relieved. Last time Adolin and Renarin had packed a saddlebag for her, Renarin had included his stuffed chull, “so she wouldn’t miss him” and Adolin had added a container of chicken, because “it’s good luck to eat it before a difficult thing.” She loved her boys, really, and didn’t want them to grow up too quickly, but sometimes it was exasperating dealing with two young children.

Then, curious, Evi turns to look at Staveni and asks, “You’re not bothered by the fact that I am a Knight Radiant?”

The nanny looks at her in confusion, before adopting a more neutral facial expression. “I figure, the Heralds wouldn’t bring back the Knights if there weren’t a reason for it,” she says practically.

“I don’t understand,” Evi muses. “All the lighteyes in the camp are terrified of me, think I’m a heretic, but every darkeyes I’ve encountered seems to take the whole thing in stride.”

Staveni shrugs. “It’s like something out of a story, that’s true, but you lighteyes are too focused on your wars and your fighting. When I was little, my grandmother told us stories about how the Knights Radiant healed folk, built houses, how they weren’t all bad like the ardents like to say. I’d say most of the darkeyes in camp are thinking of those stories, and not the way you lighteyes would. For you all, a man with Shards is the difference between a battle won or lost, and I think those what are scared of you are thinking what it could mean, not just a Shardbearer but with all sorts of your,” she wiggles her fingers, representing the mythical powers of the Knights Radiant. “Begging your pardon for speaking so freely, Brightness,” she adds, somewhat chagrined.

“No, that was… Incredibly helpful,” Evi tells her with a thoughtful smile, mulling over Staveni’s words. “I appreciate your insight, especially into the ways we lighteyes think. I’m so used to it, I don’t think I’ve ever considered an outsider’s perspective.”

“Well you don’t work for a Brightlord’s household without learning some things,” she laughs, and then pats Evi’s shoulder. “There, that’s the last of the buttons. It’s been a while since you’ve worn the riding gown, is the fit alright?”

Evi nods, and they head out to the sitting room, where the boys have arranged something of a small feast. She grins at her sons, and they grin back, one gap toothed smile and the other a bright white. She thanks them and takes a plate. “Shall we?”


	11. Horses and Guards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A visit to the stables, and a detachment of guards. The journey to Kholinar begins!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is officially the longest thing I have ever written, currently coming in at 31 pages of google doc (for comparison, my final essay for international relations was 30 pages - 26 pages of essay, one cover sheet and 3 pages of bibliography, so significantly less text)

Liah meets her at the stables as they agreed earlier, and takes Evi’s entourage in stride, kneeling down to greet the boys despite Renarin hiding shyly behind his mother’s skirts.

“Come now,” Evi chastises gently. “This is Liah, my new ward. You’re going to be seeing quite a bit of her.”

“But mama, her eyes,” Adolin blurts, his own widening almost comically.

“Really now,” she says sternly, “I expected better from you. After all, didn’t your tutors tell you that in some places, the rulers aren’t decided by the colors of their eyes? And isn’t Staveni also darkeyed? You know they are just as smart as any lighteyes, and some of them have much more sense.” She thinks of Highprince Sebarial especially. When the Almighty was handing out brains, that man was in line for a second helping of the ability to be annoying, she swears.

Adolin blushes, and mumbles an apology, and Renarin peeks out from behind her skirts and looks at Liah. He returns to hiding, pulling on her skirt so she bends down, and he whispers in her ear, “She’s really pretty I hope she’s nice,” words coming so quickly she almost mistakes it for Thaylen for a moment.

She laughs out loud and strokes his hair. “Do you think I’d take a ward who isn’t nice?” Renarin shakes his head and gives Liah a shy smile which she returns.

Entering the stables, she hears a familiar whinny and gasps. “Starmark!”

“Smart mare, that one,” an old hostler tells her. “Dunno where she came from, but the night of the Rathalas battle she came in running, all lathered up and tired, you could almost see the whites of her eyes. That’s how we knew something had happened to you, begging your pardon, Brightness Radiant.”

She can’t help herself. She hugs her horse, crooning compliments that soon devolve into nonsense into her horse’s neck. Starmark licks her cheek before headbutting her chest lightly, a clear sign of “please step away, you’re crowding me” if she ever saw one. She gives the mare one last stroke before she turns back to the hostler.

“You’ll be wanting me to saddle her, then?”

She shakes her head, fighting the sadness that tugs on her heart, but she knows that what she’s about to say is for the best. “No, we’ll be riding fast, switching horses at outposts most likely, and I don’t want to leave her at some guard house along the road.”

The man nods in understanding, sizing up the horses in the stables before singling out a large gelding. “This here’s Cremling,” he tells her. At her inquiring glance, he grins. “Was the runt of the herd, see, and we thought he wouldn’t amount to much when we named him. Well, the storming lad surprised us, didn’t he?”

She laughs, walking up to the horse to let him sniff at her, and nods in approval. Starmark gives a loud whinny and snaps her teeth at the gelding, like a warning, and Cremling huffs but lowers his head.

“He’s a bit of a prankster, usually, but I think your mare’s got him warned away from his usual tricks,” the hostler observes. “Storms, but those Ryshadium stock sure are something else.”

“Ado, Rena,” she calls to her sons. “I’m giving you two an important task.” Adolin straightens his back and puts his chest forward, like a soldier standing at attention, and Renarin looks up, lowering the hand in his mouth and giving her his full attention. “When you two go up to Kholinar, I want you to make sure Starmark comes along. She had a difficult day yesterday, so you’re going to have to watch her, make sure the pace you set isn’t too fast for her. Can you do that for me?”

The boys nod eagerly, and she opens her arms to hug them both. “We won’t let you down, mama,” Adolin promises, and Renarin echoes his words.

“I don’t doubt it for a moment,” she reassures.

The old hostler, Jak, finds a horse for Liah as well, a mare by the name of Inkstain, so named for the large black splotch on her otherwise pale coat. The horse looks placid and dependable, and Jak assures her that she’ll be good for a rider who might not be the best at it while also being able to keep up with the fast pace they’ll doubtless set.

As they wait for the stableboys to saddle their horses and make sure all their bags are safely stowed, twelve members of the Cobalt Guard, clearly intended to be her escort, join them in the stables. She doesn’t recognize any of them, but that doesn’t come as a surprise. Given the high amount of casualties the guard sustains, it’s almost futile to become acquainted with the men who serve in it. “Captain Tiridan Shaveral,” the lighteyed man in charge of the squad introduces himself. “My men and I will be escorting you to Kholinar.”

“All due respect, Captain, I don’t see the need for twelve men to accompany myself and my ward.”

“Brightness, think of your consequence,” Staveni reminds her. “The impression you’ll make in Kholinar if you ride in with less of a guard than befits you.”

“Be that as it may, a squad of twelve will certainly slow me on my journey, and it isn’t as though I have need of so many men for my protection, given recent events.” 

Several of the lighteyed men accompanying Tiridan pale at her reminder of the power she now wields, but Tiridan himself takes her words in stride. “I understand, Brightness, but… It was the Highprince’s orders...” She frowns, and he sighs, resigned to the fact that her words are more of an order and less a request.

“If it helps,” she says kindly, “I know your assignment is to guard me, but my sons will be travelling to Kholinar shortly as well.”

“Tomorrow!” Adolin pipes up.

“Tomorrow,” she repeats with a smile, “and they will be in much more need of a guard than I am. It shouldn’t be so difficult to tell your men to ride out and camp out of sight distance from this encampment, and then meet up with my sons and their companions when they ride out, should it?”

Tiridan gives her a crooked grin, a prankster’s grin, and nods. “I like the way you interpret orders, Brightness Radiant.” He surveys his men, asking, “I’m going to need eight of you to stay behind and accompany the princes tomorrow. Is there anyone who doesn’t mind returning to their sweetheart in Kholinar a little later, or do we have to draw straws?” Three lighteyed men pronounce with palpable relief that they prefer to guard the princes and are dismissed, and the captain looks at the remaining eight men. “Anyone else?”

“You’ll need a scout, so I’m going,” a young-looking man with a cap that shades his face announces, and steps out of the group of soldiers to go saddle a horse, daring the others to argue.

There are a few eyerolls and amused chuckles, and then two scowling darkeyed men look at Tiridan. “I’m not riding with Alisos,” one tells him, the other nodding his agreement. 

They are dismissed as well, though Tiridan shoots them a disgusted look as they go, and he looks at the remaining five, who exchange glances before beginning a children's’ counting game, usually used to decide who chases in games of tag. Renarin giggles at the sight of grown, bearded men, using a children’s rhyme to make such an important choice, and one of the soldiers, a man with a kind smile and grey streaked hair, announces that he’s changed his mind and would rather ride with the smiling prince, which only makes Renarin blush and hide behind Evi’s skirts again.

The final two are decided upon, horses are saddled, and the company sets out. Liah, Evi notices, has been incredibly quiet the entire time, ever since the soldiers of the Cobalt Guard came in. “Is something the matter?” She asks her ward softly, slowing her pace a little to ride beside her.

“Yes… Well, no. But yes,” the girl answers, leaving her even more confused.

“Is it one of the guardsmen? If one of them hurt you, it’s not too late to demand he turn back and someone else take his place,” she promises her ward. The thought that one of the men in her husband’s guard might have done such a thing… She knows the realities of war, and she knows that her husband picks his men not for their morals but for martial prowess, and yet the thought turns her stomach.

“No, no, it’s not like that at all,” Liah yelps, accidentally pulling up on the reigns and stopping her horse. “Sorry, sorry,” she winces, patting Inkstain’s neck and bringing her back to an easy walk with a click of her tongue. “Really, it’s not, it’s just…” She looks at the back of the man riding in front, then down at her hands, and Evi sees the wistful look on her face. 

Oh. The realization strikes her like a highstorm coming by surprise, and she doesn’t know if she should smile or frown or try and reassure her ward or matchmake. She settles for an understanding noise instead, and decides to watch both her ward and the captain and see if there isn’t something she might do.

They alternate between mad gallops, more sedate trots and then, when their horses are too exhausted to do anything else, easy walks. The rough terrain gives way to the paved roads Gavilar has ordered built across the country in the years since he began his unification of Alethkar, and the ringing of horseshoes on stone makes a steady rhythm. They pass a stone marker, with the glyphs for guardhouse and the number five, and they arrive just as the last of the sunlight disappears and night falls.

“We’ll rest here for the night,” Tiridan announces, and no one argues. She feels fine and has no signs of exhaustion, but Liah is wincing with every step of her horse, and Tiridan’s men seem glad of the chance to sleep in proper beds and not a hastily raised camp somewhere in the wild.

A clerk at the guardhouse provides them with two rooms, one for Evi and Liah, and one for the men. Her room has one large bed, and the clerk promises to have someone bring a pallet for Liah but Evi shakes her head and tells her the bed is large enough for two, and the nights are cold enough that she’ll be glad of her ward’s warmth.

After a simple dinner accompanied by an unpleasantly bitter ale, the women head up to their room, and Evi is glad of the steaming bath that awaits them, the chance to wash away the dust of the road. Exiting the washroom, she sees Liah sitting on the bed in her smallclothes, examining the bruises on her thighs, and she winces, remembering all too well her flight from Rira and the brutal pace she had set, the bruises she’d had, and then the chafing and bleeding.

“You can stay here, wait for the boys and ride at a slower, more comfortable pace,” Evi offers gently, but Liah stares at her with fierce determination.

“I’ve had worse,” she mutters angrily. “I’m not some fragile lighteyed girl who’ll break just because of a few bruises.”

“I’ve had worse too. That doesn’t mean you need to endure the pain if there’s a way to lessen it,” but Liah just glares stubbornly and she gives it up for a lost cause. Instead she gets ready for bed, removing the intricate braids Liah had done earlier in the day and braiding them into a simple but practical braid. 

They settle into bed in sullen silence, until Liah breaks it. “I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier,” she says softly. “I’m just… Sad, and scared that if I close my eyes this will all have just been a bizarre daydream and I’ll have to wake up and go back to my shift with the scribes and that cremstain of an excuse for a man making advances at me, and threats when I refuse.”

Evi pats her hand under the covers, trying to reassure her ward. “Even if it turns out that this wardship isn’t a good idea, I won’t leave you stranded on your own with no way to earn a living,” she promises.

“Thank you,” Liah whispers, and Evi can almost hear the grateful smile in her words. Then, “I’m glad you decided it’s better to share a bed. It reminds me of being in the orphanage with my sisters, and as awful as that sounds, it’s nice to remember having people who care about me unconditionally. I’ve been very alone since I came to the warcamp.”

“I’ve been very alone since I came to Alethkar,” Evi confesses, and they share in the feeling of having someone finally understand what it’s like to be surrounded by people and yet alone, until Liah yawns and curls in on herself, and her breathing levels out and begins to lull Evi to sleep as well.


	12. Where The Road Ends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which roads end, steamed buns are eaten and caves are located.

They awake before the sun has even risen to loud knocking on their door. She makes a loud noise, between a groan and a questioning sound, and a voice on the other side calls, “We leave at dawn, breakfast will be served shortly.” 

Liah answers with a similarly sleepy groan, and they hear the sound of footsteps reatreating. “Well, nothing for it,” Evi says, trying to muster some cheer as she slips out from underneath the covers and heads to her saddlebags for an undergown and a fresh riding dress. She opens her safepouch, intending for the spheres to provide some light to dress by, but all of the infused spheres she had brought yesterday are now dun.

“Is this why I’m not sore at all, Char?” She asks softly. Her spren hums in agreement, whirling above the pouch of dull spheres, disintegrating and becoming whole all the while. Char glows with a faint grey light, and an idea strikes her.

Before she even voices the words, Char rolls her eyes. “Where do you need me to give you some light, your Radiance?”

“Just over the saddlebags, so I can find the dress and clean smallclothes,” Evi answers, already exasperated with her spren’s antics. She searches in the bag and finds the clothes quickly, and notices Liah staring, an odd look on her face.

“How can you see so well in the dark?” She asks petulantly, having unpacked almost the entirety of her saddlebags in her attempt to find her clothes. “No, wait, let me guess, it’s a Radiant thing. Oh, that’s so unfair,” she complains.

“Not a morning person?” Evi smiles. She’s the sort of person that, once awake, is fully awake and ready to face the day. No sense in wasting time wallowing in misery at early wakeups, but she knows not everyone shares her attitude towards morning. Dalinar certainly doesn’t, despite being a career soldier.

“Divi used to say there’s no use talking to me before midday,” Liah admits. “Said I’d bite people’s heads off otherwise.”

She hears the longing in her ward’s voice. “You’ll see your sisters soon,” she promises. “Sooner than you would have if you’d stayed with the army, that’s for certain.”

Liah smiles, cheered by the thought, and as they finish dressing in silence punctuated only by the whisper of fabric, Evi asks Char if she has any siblings.

“They tell me I used to,” she answers bitterly. “But I’m lastborn, and I never met them before the Radiants killed them.”

“I’m sorry for asking,” Evi murmurs, earning a confused look from Liah, but she just shakes her head, and with an awkward smile tells her, “Radiant things,” and her ward offers an eyeroll and exaggerated scowl.

Breakfast is porridge, sweetened with a berry jam for the women and spiced with something pungent for the men, and mugs of hot tea for everyone. Rising from the table, she murmurs several requests to a serving maid, who curtsies and rushes to fulfill them. 

In the stables, they are given fresh horses, the sort usually reserved for couriers who need to travel with all due haste. Evi takes Liah aside and hands her a wrapped bundle. “A canteen filled with hot tea. Put it under your dress while you ride, it ought to help at least a little with the aches.” For a moment she wishes she was the sort of Radiant who could heal, but Char tells her disdainfully that taking things apart is more fun than putting them back together, and she rolls her eyes and lets go of the thought.

Liah is skeptical, but excuses herself to the privy to try and arrange the heated bundle in some semblance of a comfortable manner.

They ride out, following the road towards Kholinar, passing a trading caravan at one point, and a courier heading in the direction of the coast. Nobody pays much attention to their group, thanks to their efforts not to draw attention. At midday they arrive at another guardpost, where they sit down for a hot meal and swap horses as well. 

Tiridan examines a map of the area with the captain of the guardpost, and returns from the man’s office with a frown on his face. “We’re not going to be able to stay the night at a guardpost, not unless we stop riding well before nightfall at the last one before the road ends,” he reports.

“I’m no stranger to sleeping in the wilderness,” Evi reassures him, and they set off.

Before they leave, the guardhouse’s cook stows a cloth sack in her saddlebag. “Something for the ladies, for the road,” the kind woman smiles, patting Evi’s horse on its flank. Evi returns her smile and nudges the horse into motion.

They ride at a brisk pace, stopping for a rest when they reach the end of the road, where a crew of parshmen slaves and convicts, overseen by men in the faded colors of some Brightlord or Highprince, are at work building yet more road. They dismount from their horses, tethering them to a copse of trees, and take turns going to relieve themselves before settling on the ground in exhaustion. Evi fetches the bag the kind cook had given her, motioning for Liah to come closer, and they discover soft, steamed buns filled with a sweet bean filling. 

“I’d offer you all some,” she tells their guards, “but I don’t think you’ll like them, it’s women’s food after all.”

The scout, the one the surly men had called Alisos, expresses curiosity and a desire to try, so she passes him a bun, wondering at his smooth face when the rest of the guardsmen are sporting fairly impressive beards. Alisos breaks the bun in two, sniffs curiously at the filling, then takes a bite and chews thoughtfully before announcing, “Well it’s certainly not the worst thing I’ve ever eaten.” 

Judging by the way he enthusiastically devours the rest of the bun, Evi thinks to herself, it might even be one of the better things the man has tried. She’s certainly enjoyed her bun. 

“We ought to ration these,” Liah says disappointedly. “Who knows when the next guardhouse will be, and we’re going to need something to keep our spirits up on the trip.”

“You’re right,” she agrees, tying the sack and returning it to her saddlebags. “I’m glad that cook gave us these, though. I needed something sweet.” Her sweet tooth is somewhat legendary in the Kholin household after all.

“I liked how soft the bread was,” Liah offers. “The bean paste was…” She shrugs, “alright I suppose.”

“I wonder what you’ll think of the kitchens in Kholinar,” Evi muses absentmindedly.

“The palace kitchens?” Liah asks, voice almost a squeak. “Oh, blessed Heralds, somehow it hasn’t really sunk in that I’ll be living with you. In the palace. Oh, storms…”

“Did I hear talk of the palace kitchens?” Tiridan strolls over, cobalt blue coat unbuttoned over a white shirt, and joins their conversation.

A flush creeps up Liah’s face at his appearance, and Evi can’t resist. “Hot, isn’t it?” She nods at Tiridan’s open coat.

“Well, riding will do that,” he replies. “But, er, Liah, right?” Liah makes a noise somewhere between choking and assenting, and nods. “The first time I came to the palace in Kholinar, to the kitchens, I mean, I ate so much I thought they’d roll me out of the guard and back to my father’s shop. There’s this cook there, an angry Herdazian woman, and she won’t let you leave without making sure you’re properly fed, only her definition of properly fed is… Well, a lot.”

Liah giggles at his description, and Evi remembers her first encounter with Wona, describing it to Liah and Tiridan. “So there I was, alone and lost in the palace halls, and she just grabbed me by my sleeve and dragged me to the kitchen, and she put some sort of stew and flatbread in front of me and told me to eat,” she concludes, brightening at the memory. “Wona is like a highstorm, you just have to go with wherever she takes you.”

“That’s a beautiful way to phrase it, Brightness,” Tiridan comments, and then he rises and stretches. Liah’s eyes go to his chest as he cracks his back, and Evi hides her smirk behind her gloved safehand. “I think it’s best we were off, though. We’ve loitered here long enough, and I should like to cover some ground before the sun sets and we make camp.”

Evi nods her assent, and the company mounts up and heads down the well-travelled trail that begins where the road ends. “Well now you know he knows your name,” she tells Liah slyly.

Her ward flushes. “That’s just being polite,” she dismisses. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Well he certainly wasn’t walking around with his coat undone and stretching like that for my benefit,” Evi counters.

“He’s a lighteyes.”

_“I’m_ a lighteyes.”

“Exactly! So you know very well that lighteyes don’t marry darkeyes. And I’m not going to just have… dalliances… like my mother did, nevermind that no man will be able to get me with child.”

“He’s eighth, seventh dahn at best. His parents have a shop, there’s no way they’re higher than eighth,” Evi argues. “At ranks like that, a man might marry a high nahn darkeyed woman.”

“I’m sixth nahn,” Liah snaps. “And that only because I joined the Blackthorn’s army as a scribe!”

“You’re my ward,” Evi retorts, with a tone that suggests that Liah is missing something obvious. “I’d say that makes you at least second nahn.” Liah gapes in shock, but is unable to find something to say in response to that. “We’ll get you the proper papers issued when we get to Kholinar,” she promises, though she isn’t sure that her words penetrate Liah’s shock.

The rear guard, a darkeyed man by the name of Ril, comes up to ride abreast with the two women. “Everything alright, Brightness, miss?” He nods to each one of them in turn. “Only you two started to slow down, and I thought might be there’s something wrong with one of the horses, or you maybe started feeling unwell.”

“Thank you for your concern,” Evi smiles. “But we’re quite well, truly. Liah was just startled by something I told her, concerning her education.”

He nods. “Well, begging your pardon, Brightness, but the captain was wanting to cover some more ground before dark, so we ought to push the horses a bit.”

Instead of responding, she kicks her horse into a gallop, Liah following behind her, and lets out a whoop of joy as she overtakes Tiridan at the front of their party.

Char giggles in her ear as they make a game of it, each of the riders constantly trying to overtake the others, before their horses begin to slow, tired of their antics, and they resume a more sedate pace.

Tiridan glances at the setting sun and makes a motion to Alisos, who nods and rides into the woods surrounding them.

“He’s looking for a place we can make camp,” Evi tells Liah at the girl’s confused look. “A small party like us, we’re going to need someplace sheltered and out of sight of the road, so we don’t get attacked by bandits.”

“Oh. When the army came to Rathalas we just… Camped wherever we were when it got too dark to travel,” Liah admits.

“Well, an army isn’t exactly a target for bandits,” she points out, and Liah giggles at the thought of a group of bandits attacking the Blackthorn’s entire army.

Alisos meets them before too long, though Evi can see that they don’t have much daylight left by which to set up camp. She berates herself for not thinking ahead and exchanging her dun spheres for infused ones, but done is done, and dun is dun. Nothing to do about it here in the middle of a forest. 

They ride a short distance before the scout dismounts and the rest of the party follows suit, and they walk the horses the rest of the way to a fairly large cave. “There’s a spring in the back,” Alisos tells them as they picket the horses and feed them some grain. “We’re not the first travellers to spend the night here, or maybe shelter from a highstorm even,” he points to a charred part of the cave floor, evidence of a fire lit there in the past.

In short order, wood is gathered, a fire is lit, and Gors, the fourth guardsman, begins to cook something in a cauldron over it. 

The women head to the spring in the back of the cave, which is cold enough that Evi decides to just wash her face with a washcloth instead of bathing. Liah, on the other hand, doesn’t mind the cold water as much, choosing to take a quick dip in the spring to relieve her aching muscles.

“How are your legs feeling?”

“Not as bad, actually,” Liah answers after a moment spent inspecting the collection of bruises on her thighs. “It almost looks like the bruises have gotten better, or at least lighter, but you can’t really tell in this light.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” She wonders if there’s some way she can transfer her ability to inhale stormlight and heal, and Char giggles knowingly. “Char?”

“It’s a surprise!”

Evi frowns. “A good surprise, or a bad one?” Her spren just shrugs and then becomes a miniature whirlwind of dust, spinning off to explore the cave. Evi groans. “You’re going to be the death of me!”

“Me?” Liah asks, having changed and gathered her things. 

“No, ugh, Radiant things,” Evi says tiredly. “Honestly, that spren….”

“Spren?” A confused look. “No, forget it, Radiant things, I don’t think I want to know. I’m still shocked by my new rank, I don’t need to get involved in Radiant things.”

“You’re already involved,” Evi points out.

“That’s true.”


	13. Suntear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a rant about social justice or lack thereof, and also crying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi sorry it's been a shitty almost two months and i would like one (1) death please but here is an Evi and apologies for the lateness

Once again they are woken up before sunrise, though this time it is by Alisos, who gently shakes her and Liah awake and points to two steaming bowls that await them by the campfire. The spring water feels impossibly colder in the morning, and the two women share scowls as they wash their faces and clean their teeth as quickly as they can manage.

The bowls contain some sort of flatbread and vegetables cooked in the coals, and Evi brings out a jar of honey the cook at the guardhouse had pressed on her, knowing how mens’ food tends to be the worst sort of unappetizing for the traveling Brightlady. Liah declines the offer, choosing to eat the food as it is so Evi shrugs and drizzles honey over the bread, telling her ward, “more for me, then.” The comment earns her a roll of the eyes, and she counts it as a win.

They break camp and begin the day’s ride, settling into a brisk pace with occasional breaks for quick snacks and stretches. In the evening they make camp, and Evi and Liah collapse onto their bedrolls in exhaustion, falling asleep almost as soon as their eyes close. The rest of the days follow in much the same way, differing only in the locations they make camp and the meals they share.

On the fifth day, while the rest of the men clear away the remains of breakfast and begin to break down their campsite, Tiridan and Alisos examine a map with furrowed brows before bringing it over to Evi and Liah.

“My ladies,” Tiridan greets, spreading the map out on the ground in front of them so they can see. He places a red berry on the map, saying, “This is where we are right now.”

“Is that good or bad?” Evi asks, confused. Reading maps and navigating had been her brother’s job in the flight from Iri.

“We’re making good time,” the captain tells her. “In fact, we’re moving faster than I thought we would be, to be honest, because we’re a smaller group and you ladies are tougher than I expected.” 

He shoots a playful grin in their direction and Liah flushes, but Evi dismisses his words with a roll of the eyes. “And why has that got you and our scout tied up in knots like that?” Evi asks. 

Alisos pulls out a folded parchment and passes it to her. The top is marked with the glyph for “storm” and the rest is a list of dates and times. He points to a line by the bottom of the page, and Liah, reading the page over Evi’s shoulder, grimaces. “I can see how that would be inconvenient,” she notes dryly.

“Sarcasm is unbefitting in a lady of standing,” Evi chastises, putting on the prim and haughty voice she has heard multiple tutors use with young Jasnah, but Liah sticks out her tongue and they both break down into giggles. “Please, continue,” Evi says finally once they have gotten theirselves under control.

“Er, yes, well,” Tiridan stumbles, unsure what the protocol for witnessing a Highprince’s wife giggle hysterically is. “I had originally planned for us to weather the storm here,” he says and points to a dot marking a settlement, some ways behind where the berry marking their location lies. “It’s a large town, and I had thought we might take shelter at the Citylord’s keep, stock up on provisions, change horses and perhaps stay the night in a more comfortable location than a hastily raised camp. But as you can tell, we’d have to double back and…”

“No,” Evi says firmly. “All due haste to Kholinar, as per the King’s orders.”

“I told you she’d say that,” Alisos says, extending a hand.

Tiridan presses a sphere into his palm with a scowl and returns to the map. “We’ve got two options then,” he says. “There’s a farming village an hour’s ride eastward, and we could wait out the storm and spend the night there. Or we continue north as we have been, ride as quickly as possible and strive to make Suntear before the storm.”

Suntear. She had seen the name in her account books quite often. A mining town on the edge of the Sunmaker Mountains, taking its name from a nearby waterfall. Their income came mostly from sales of gems for Soulcasting, and the citylord was a newly ennobled lighteyes indebted to her husband for the posting. “We ride for Suntear,” Evi announces in a tone that brooks no argument.

“God grant we make it in time,” one of the men adds softly, but Tiridan scoffs.

“We’ll be there with time to spare,” he promises, rising and patting dirt off of his breeches. He extends a hand to Evi and Liah to help them rise, earning a soft word of thanks from Liah, and they move to mount up and ride.

Mountain foothills make for difficult terrain and by the time they reach a rise overlooking the town, horses and humans are feeling the strain from the ride. Alisos estimates the ride to the town to be another hour’s ride at most, and after a brief discussion with Tiridan the group dismounts for a half hour’s rest before continuing onward.

Alisos rides ahead with Ril to announce their party as the rest of them follow at a somewhat slower pace, and so they are greeted at the gates by Athakas, the citylord, Humera, his wife, their children and a small army of servants who take the horses and packs from the grateful travellers. 

Humera descends upon Evi like a small, orange and black whirlwind, grabbing her arm and sweeping her away towards the keep before Evi can say anything. The woman chatters at her, and Evi is grateful that she doesn’t even seem to notice her lack of responses.

“My ward, Liah,” she manages to wedge in as she is led up a staircase and into a set of rooms, and the girl gives a respectful nod to the citylord’s wife.

“Yes, yes, adjoining rooms, don’t fret,” she chirps, and then stills as she notices Liah’s eyes for the first time.

“Is there a problem?” Evi asks coolly, and the woman seems to shrink as she shakes her head and continues forwards, noticeably more silent now.

Hot baths are taken, clean clothes are provided and put on, a hot lunch is served, and then they hear the thunder and winds of the highstorm descend.

“Amazing timing,” Liah comments between bites, to sounds of agreement from their guards, sharing their table at Evi’s insistence despite Humera’s protests that it isn’t done.

“Food’s not bad either,” one of the men ventures, and some of the others raise mugs of ale in agreement.

“Are your rooms acceptable?” Evi asks, concerned that the lady of the house’s obsession with protocol and propriety might result in less than equitable treatment of the darkeyed men.

“Solid roof, comfortable bed, no rats,” Ril says frankly. “Weren’t expecting no Brightlord’s bedchamber, begging your pardon, Brightness Radiant.”

Evi cracks a smile at that, but after the meal she makes sure to ask the darkeyed servants if their employers treat them fairly, and if they’ve any complaints.

“Brightness is a bit nervous, but her daughters are alright and the citylord never lets any of the soldiers touch us if we don’t want,” one of the serving girls answers, and Evi lets her words and the nods of agreement from the others settle the matter.

“I didn’t really like the woman,” she confides in Liah once they are alone in Evi’s sitting room with a teatray and some pastries, “but I suppose she’s not as horrid as I thought she would be. Biased and judgemental, maybe, too concerned with what’s proper and what’s not, but not a terrible human being.”

“It happens,” Liah tells her. “Saw it a lot in the lower nahn ladies who came to the Ardentia’s orphanages to do charity work, because it was the ‘done thing,’ a good way to show that you care about the poor and so on. It’s a specific sort of person, the kind who are uncertain in their social standing so they try and feel superior to others.”

“It bothers me,” Evi says softly.

“Why? There’s almost no one above you in social standing, you’re not some darkeyed orphan on the receiving end of it like I am.”

“Was,” she corrects. “You aren’t any longer.”

“You can take an orphan and make her a Radiant’s ward, but in her heart she’ll still be an orphan raised by Ardents,” Liah counters. “Where we are and what we do matters, sure, but we never let go of where we came from, how our childhood made us who we are.”

“But you can’t live your entire life being that girl, you have to move on and grow up,” Evi argues, though a voice that sounds suspiciously like Char’s mocks her in her head, brings up all the memories of each time she felt like the scared young girl from Iri despite being the Blackthorn’s wife and the mother of his sons. Liah doesn’t answer, and after a few heartbeats of silence, Evi whispers, “I can’t let go and move on, sometimes. I wish I could, but I’m scared, and alone, and I’m glad I met you.”

Liah takes her hand and grips it tightly, and doesn’t say a word when tears well up in Evi’s eyes, or when they roll down her cheeks and land on her skirts. “I’m glad I met you too,” she says softly when Evi wipes at her face with her other hand, and both women smile at each other with wobbling lower lips before breaking into tears and pulling each other into a tight hug.


	14. Dinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the boiling of water and the grilling of meat is discussed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi sorry for the delay i love you all have words

This time before setting out, Evi makes sure that her entourage is carrying only infused spheres before they set out. It’s a good thing she checks, too, because despite the storm the night before, somehow a quarter of Liah’s spheres have grown dun already. Char cackles with mirth from somewhere around Evi’s head while doing her best impression of a cloud, raining grey-white dust that vanishes before it hits any sort of surface. 

“Char, do you want to be a bit more helpful than that and explain?” Evi tries, using the tone she uses on her sons when she knows they’ve done something but she doesn’t know what. Unfortunately it seems that while the tone works very well on young Alethi princes, when it comes to Char all she gets is more laughter.

If she’s learned one thing from her husband and his military campaigns, however, it is that there are two sides to every situation. “I have reason to believe,” she tells Liah softly and with a look she hopes conveys her chagrin and discomfort that Liah has gotten dragged into this against her own will, “that spending time with Radiants may be, er, contagious, in a sense.” 

Her ward, still mostly asleep - an impressive achievement in light of their technically having been awake and riding horses for several hours now - makes a baffled questioning noise and stares at her in confusion.

“That is to say,” Evi tries to explain, “well, my spren, you see, she won’t say, not outright, but I think, and your spheres, and how are you feeling? After all the riding? You should be sore, painfully so, but you’re not, aren’t you? Not as badly as you should be, right?” She’s babbling, a bad habit, but she doesn’t want her new ward to hate her, is too scared to have messed it all up so soon, and especially not without even intending to.

“What.” Liah blinks several times, clearly trying to figure out what Evi is trying to say. “Wait. What?” Another pause, and a strained look on her face, as if she’s trying to add complex sums in her head. “Are you saying that Radiants… can heal injuries with Stormlight?” 

Evi nods.

“And you’re healing mine?”

“What? No, I can’t, that’s not my powers? There’s a book in Kholinar, we’ll read it together and see what we can learn, but I think maybe you’re becoming a sort of Radiant-in-Training?” Her words come out questions, almost apologetic, really. “Sorry, I know you didn’t exactly join up for this,” she tries to console, but Liah cuts her off.

“And you did? You woke up the other day and just said, ‘Today I’m going to become a Knight Radiant!’? No, it just happened. It was an ordinary day until suddenly you could walk through fire, right? Well, it must have happened for  _ some _ reason, and if God and the Heralds decided that we suddenly need a Knight Radiant then surely it’ll be even better to have two!”

“It didn’t happen suddenly,” Char whispers, and clearly Liah can hear her this time around, because she startles, looking around for the speaker. A miniature dustcloud perches between her horse’s ears, prompting the horse to flick them in irritation, but the spren ignores the movement. “I was watching. A long time. Since she was small.” She says the words like a conspirator admitting to a crime, and Evi holds back a shocked gasp.

“Those times at my parents’ house?” Evi asks, though she already knows the answer in her bones. “With the suitors, and the tea?”

“Hot tea,” Char hums in response. 

Liah makes a questioning noise, so Evi paints the story in broad strokes: her mother struck down by illness some years prior and her father, left weakened by the same, determined to find his daughter a “proper” husband before he left this world. Multiple noblemen, the sort with pristine lineages and incomes and looking for their next wife, nevermind that they had children her age. The sort who thought that, since her father had consented to the match, it was a done deal and they could go ahead and enjoy the “perks” right away, only to be hit in the face with boiling tea, or on one mortifying occasion, bathwater, that had been lukewarm only moments before.

“Men…” Liah growls, throwing the word out like a swear.

“The night we ran too, then, Char?” She closes her eyes as tightly as she can, focuses on breathing, the sounds she can hear, the things she can feel and smell, anything to remind herself when and where she is. “If you ever see a Makabaki man with a crescent moon on his cheek, Liah,” she hears herself say, “run.” 

Char hisses at the memory of the man, only confirming what Evi had felt in her gut. “He is no man, anymore,” the spren spits. “Oathbreaker!” But when the women ask what oath the Makabaki man has broken, Char remains silent, like a petulant child, refusing to so much as acknowledge the questions.

They ride in silence for a while until Tiridan calls a halt for lunch, and Evi climbs off her horse and sinks to sit on the ground, back against a tree, making herself as small as she can physically manage. She tries to turn down a meat pastry Liah hands her, claiming to not be hungry, but Liah stares her down until she begins to nibble reluctantly.

Alisos shoots Liah a questioning look when he sees Evi looking small and pale and vulnerable, but Liah grits her teeth and shakes her head, trying to convey that it’s none of his business. The scout shrugs, as if to say, “if you say so,” and walks off towards the picketed horses as Liah sits down beside Evi and puts her freehand on the older woman’s safehand.

Hesitantly, she asks Evi about the full story of the night she and her brother fled their home for Alethkar, and the Makabaki man, but Evi shakes her head and promises to tell her another time, when it weighs on her less heavily than it does now, and Liah relents.

“Let’s talk about something more interesting, then,” she suggests and Evi gives her a skeptical look. “Aside from boiling water and walking through fires, what can you do?”

“Oh that  _ is _ a good idea,” Evi agrees thoughtfully. “I think the boiling water is less boiling the water and more adding fire and heat to it, right Char?”

Liah blinks. “Adding fire and heat to water  _ is _ boiling water, Evi.” Has her mistress taken a blow to the head when no one was looking?

Evi clicks her tongue in fond exasperation. “I meant that it’s less because of anything I’m doing with the water, whatever I do makes things fire, but fiery water is just hot water, oh, I’m absolutely the worst person to become a Radiant, I’m not a scholar like Navani or Jasnah, I don’t know how to explain it all!”

“You could use words,” Char offers unhelpfully, and the timing of her words causes Liah to choke on a sip of water. Liah's coughing fit almost makes them miss Tiridan’s order to break camp and mount up.

“Has anyone ever mounted  _ down _ ?” Alisos asks loudly, in a tone that imitates some of the more studious and pretentious ardents and Tiridan groans loudly in response, while Ril shoves the scout in the direction of his horse.

“This is why some of the men hate you,” Ril tells him with a roll of the eyes.

“Only some?” Alisos makes a face of exaggerated shock and innocence. “I’ve got to try harder then.”

“What if you tried really hard to set him on fire from a distance?” Liah whispers to Evi, deliberately pitching her voice so that the others can hear, earning a few chuckles and a wide grin from the captain.

“You mean I’ve been struggling with flint and steel all these nights when we could have just had you do some Radiant-ing and have things catch fire?” Alisos asks Evi in mock-indignation, and Liah realises suddenly that the men are deliberately joking around like this in an attempt to lighten Evi’s mood.

“I’m not sure it works that way?” Evi tries to defend herself. “I haven’t exactly had much time to practice, you know…”

“A thousand pardons, your Radiance, Brightness Firestarter,” Tiridan says dramatically, bowing deeply in his saddle and barely suppressing a wide grin. “May I offer you my scout, Alisos the Annoying, as a practice target while we ride to make up for missed opportunities?”

“Oh but my lord captain,” Liah joins in with a falsely sweet tone, batting her eyelashes at the man, “I can’t help but think you haven’t the proper sauces to make a womens’ meal out of Alisos, and then her Radiance will be left with grilled meat that is not pleasing to her taste!”

“The man’s hardly pleasing to anyone’s taste as it stands,” Gors mutters under his breath, though the fondness in his voice is undeniable.

“I live to serve,” Alisos offers eagerly.

“To be served for dinner, more likely,” Ril retorts, and the men and Liah exchange pleased looks as they watch Evi succumb to giggles.


	15. Rules

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our heroes arrive in Kholinar, stories are exchanged, mysteries surface and also some things are set on fire.

The rest of the journey continues without any particularly remarkable moments, just the usual sort of riding along in relative silence, occasional jokes or conversations between members of their small party when they ride at a slower pace that allows for it.

She isn’t really paying attention to their surroundings at this point, focusing mostly on staying awake as the horse’s motion lulls her to sleep, when ahead of her, the rest of the party pulls to a halt. She hears Liah gasp, and whisper an awed, “oh, glory,” and she blinks a few times to get the exhaustion from her eyes and better understand what has her ward so impressed. 

Oh. Kholinar. Already? But then, it makes sense, given the pace they’ve been setting. She even understands Liah’s awe. The first time she’d seen the city from above, returning with her husband after a campaign, she’d been too stunned for words as well. Now, coupled with the setting sun, it does look like something out of a painting, she admits.

“It looks so different from here,” Liah tells her as she guides her horse closer to her ward. “You can’t see the limbless beggars and orphaned children from this far away. It doesn’t smell, either.”

Evi doesn’t know how to respond to her ward. You can’t see the orphans and the poor from the palace either. Many of the nobles like to pretend they can’t see them entirely, that all of Kholinar is its palace and nothing else of note.

“It looks peaceful,” Liah adds, frowning.

“Like a toy,” Tiridan notes. “Like someone carved and painted what they think a city should look like, but they forgot the important part. Cities are their people, not their stones.” He gives the two ladies a look. “I don’t like looking at cities from far off. Cities are about people and crowds and noise and smells. Looking from a distance seems wrong. Like you’re missing the entire point of what a city is. You want to look at pretty pictures or houses, go on a tour of the mansions of the Veden peak district or visit the Royal Gallery.”

Well that was an unexpected outburst of sentiment. “That sounds like something a city boy would say,” she says.

“Aye, born and raised in Kholinar,” he agrees with a nod and a wistful smile. “In the Stone Ward, by the temple of Talenel. Father is ninth dahn, the master glassblower of his glassworks, Mother’s father was an ardent, the High Priest of Talenel before he passed away, which is why my siblings and I are seventh dahn and Taledar is sworn to the ardentia once he’s old enough.”

Evi gives Liah a look that she hopes conveys a sense of “I told you he’s not that high ranked” while also saying, “see? It’s definitely a possible match!” Unfortunately, Liah either doesn’t notice or simply chooses to ignore her, while Tiridan does.

“It was a bit of a scandal, some twenty years ago,” he says sheepishly. “The High Priest’s daughter ran off with the glassmaker who put in the stained glass for the temple, and no thought for the differences in dahn, but mother always says people are people, no matter their rank, and there’s more important things in life than rank.”

“Don’t people who leave the ardentia become tenth dahn?” Evi asks thoughtlessly, almost instantly berating herself for asking. Her understanding of Vorinism isn’t the best, but she was certain her tutor on the subject, namely Navani, wouldn’t have misled her about such a basic thing.

“Well, that’s the thing, she wasn’t an ardent, only her father swore the oaths, you see?” Tiridan explains. “So she was the head ardent’s daughter, but she never left the ardentia because she was never in it to start. And since dahn passes from higher ranked parent to child, and her father was seventh dahn as the head ardent of a temple, she was seventh, and now my siblings and I are too.”

“This is making my head hurt,” Liah complains. “You Lighteyes and your complicated rules…”

Evi rolls her eyes and Tiridan laughs. 

“Speaking of complicated rules, Brightness,” Ril interrupts, “unless you were planning on making camp here, we best be on our way to the gates.”

His captain nods. “It’s true. Gates close third bell after sunset, and if we want to come in after that, well… They’ll probably let us in, since we’re escorting the King’s sister-in-law, but it’ll take forever to fetch a scribe to confirm with the palace scribes that you’re expected, and then send someone to identify you at the gates even though we’ve all got papers saying who we are and the Right of Travel and all, and while we’re waiting they’ll search us and put us under an armed guard, and then paperwork to explain why the gates are being opened after they’re supposed to be closed… If me explaining my family gave you a headache then this’ll be even worse,” he concludes with the sigh of a man who has had to face off with the mind-numbingly stupid bureaucracy before.

If she is honest with herself, the thought of another night outside of the palace and its strict rules is incredibly welcome, but she looks at her men and Liah, their dishevelled and tired appearances, the hopeful looks some of them are giving her, and her decision is made for her. Clicking her tongue to get her horse moving, she looks at the small party. “Well? What are we waiting for, then? Some of you have families to meet tonight, don’t you?”

“Bless you, Brightness,” Gors tells her gratefully as they ride, reaching into his coat and pulling out a folded square of parchment which he passes along to her. Curiosity overtakes her and she unfolds it, seeing a charcoal sketch of a young woman and a child, maybe three weepings old at most. “My wife Min, and the little one is our daughter Sen.”

“They’re beautiful,” she says, though the picture itself doesn’t convey all that much detail about their appearances. She can see from his face that he loves them very much, which is what really matters.

“Alisos drew it for me. We had to leave all sudden like, this one night, so Captain sent some of the men to fetch the ones who don’t live in the barracks. Alisos came to my house, and while I was packing my things, he made the picture for me, and a picture of me for my wife.”

“That’s very impressive. He sounds like a man of many talents.” She had thought her husband picked his guardsmen to be as similar to himself and his single-minded passion for war and combat, but she’s learning that this may not be the case.

“Well, I suppose he is,” Gors hedges awkwardly, like there’s something he wants to say about Alisos but can’t, which is odd, but she decides not to press and silently hands back the parchment. Either it’s not important, and then she doesn’t need to pry, or it is, and someone will tell her when she needs to know.

They arrive at the south gate to Kholinar, and instead of waiting in line for their turn ride directly towards the gates. Tiridan presents himself to the sergeant at the gates, along with his own papers, and exchanges words she can’t really hear over the disgruntled murmuring of the people they’d skipped ahead of. He’s clearly banking on her being recognizable as the Blackthorn’s wife by looks alone, and it works, too, because they are allowed in with no further questions or checks.

“Is security always this lax in Kholinar?” She asks the captain as they walk their horses through the city towards the palace.

“Well, we’re a small company, four soldiers, two of whom are lighteyes, a foreign lighteyed woman with expensive clothing and a darkeyes who looks like a serving girl or scribe,” he explains. “Add to that the Cobalt Guard uniforms, and the sigils on the tack and gear… I’m surprised he even bothered to check my papers, frankly. But also, Kholinar isn’t on any particularly high alert, as far as I know. The only thing they’re really checking at the city gates is that people have the Right of Travel and aren’t running away, or wanted criminals. The real security for us will be at the palace, and that’s not going to be very difficult because, well, how many Iriali women are there in the palace at Kholinar?”

“I’m Riran,” she corrects automatically, earning an embarrassed blush and an apology she waves off as she considers his words. It makes sense. While House Kholin is ostensibly at war, their war is with Tanalan’s rebellion. Kholinar has been the seat of their power for a long time, and is more than thoroughly pacified, and is not under any threat.

They continue towards the palace, but a small commotion, what sounds like someone calling for her, catches her attention. 

“Brightness! Brightness Kholin!” The person shouting her name is an ardent, bare hands raised at her in supplication and a wild look in their eyes. “Brightness Kholin, what happened in Rathalas? Did our lady Chanaranach walk those fields?”

“She was the first,” Char whispers in her ear, and she tries to puzzle out her spren’s meaning. “The patron. You learned from her. And then you betrayed her. And now you have sworn your oaths to me.”

She stops her horse and closes her eyes, concentrating on figuring out the cryptic words her spren whispers. “The Herald Chanaranach was the teacher of the Releasers,” she tells the ardent, who kneels between her and the temple’s courtyard.

“Until the Betrayal,” Char repeats while she gets off her horse and approaches the courtyard on foot.

“The Radiants of old made a mistake, betrayed their teachings and oaths,” she acknowledges, and Char makes a pleased noise, like this is what she’d wanted to hear Evi say aloud, in front of the ardent. In her head, an idea forms, and she tries to think the idea at Char, get her spren’s opinion. When her spren makes a humming noise that seems thoughtful and excited, she takes it as agreement to her idea, and kneels on the stone of the courtyard, undoing the buttons of her safehand sleeve so the fingers of both hands can touch the stone.

“The Radiants are gone,” an elderly ardent tries to say, but the ardent who had called out to her in the streets checks him with a shoulder, silencing him.

“The Radiants of old are gone,” Evi agrees, and inhales the Stormlight in gems and spheres around the temple. Then she channels the energy out through her fingers, into the stones of the courtyard, hoping that what comes out will match the image she sees in her head. A triangle comprised of three symbols: at its base, her own version of the Kholin glyphpair and the symbol for the order of Releasers, and at the top, the glyphpair travellers burn in thanks for a safe return.

Evi hears the sound of stone cracking, feels sudden heat and the smell of smoke, and smiles when she sees that it worked as she had intended. Cloth rustles as the ardents prostrate themselves in front of her, whether in fear or awe, she can’t tell. 


End file.
